for a time, the same course; other distinguished 
breeders have also, with various degrees of success, 
and for periods of various length, pursued it; a 
considerable number of breeders of the present 
day, particularly in England, still practise it, and 
regard it as the best; and several naturalists 
have appealed, for the vindication of it, to facts 
in the economy of wild animals, and especially to 
the instance of the exceedingly prolonged consan- 
guineous propagation of the flock of wild cattle 
at Chillingham Park. “Mr. Bakewell,” says Mr. 
Culley, “ has not had a cross from.any other breed 
than his own for upwards of twenty years; his 
best stock has been bred by the nearest affinities ; 
yet they have not decreased in size, neither are 
they less hardy, or more liable to disorders ; but, 
on the contrary, have kept on a progressive state 
ofimprovement. But one of the most conclusive 
arguments that crossing with different stock is 
not necessary to secure size, hardiness, &c., is the’ 
breed of wild cattle in Chillingham Park, in the 
county of Northumberland. It is well known 
that these cattle have been confined in this park 
for several hundred years, without any intermix- 
ture, and are perhaps the purest breed of cattle 
of any in the kingdom; and though bred from 
the nearest affinities in every possible degree, yet 
we find them exceedingly hardy, healthy, and 
well formed, and their size, as well as colour, and 
many other particulars and peculiarities, the 
same as they were five hundered years ago.” 
Mr. Napier quotes this passage, and appears to 
concur in it; and Mr. Hayward argues at much 
length, on a diversity of grounds, and in formal 
opposition to Sir John Sinclair, in support of the 
doctrine which it inculcates. Yet the true law 
of either improving or undeteriorating propaga- 
tion, so far as we can deduce it from a vast mass 
of conflicting observations, is that consanguine- 
ousness of breeding, viewed apart from other 
controlling or modifying circumstances, acts in- 
differently in the wild state of animals, and has 
a deteriorating tendency in the exact ratio of 
domestication. Mr. Bakewell, by a choice selec- 
tion of individuals, improved his breeds up to the 
highest possible pitch, which became identical 
with the utmost possible degree of domestica- 
tion ; and he afterwards preserved his flocks from 
degenerating, only by careful attention to the 
utmost attainable proprieties of pairing, and espe- 
cially by a constant and costly provision of the 
fittest climate, the amplest shelter, and the rich- 
est food. But had he either permitted his im- 
proved breeds promiscuous intercourse, or allowed 
them to live under the ordinary conditions of com- 
mon pasturage on a common farm, he would proba- 
bly have witnessed a deterioration almost as rapid 
asthe previousimprovement. Hisbreeds, too, were 
but newly formed,—they, under his own manage- 
ment, came for the first time into the possession 
of the characteristic properties which constituted 
them varieties of their species; and they, there- 
fore, in all or any of their tendencies to degener- 
BREEDING. 
acy, were no more parallel to the long established 
good breeds of the present day, than a hybrid 
plant of the first generation is parallel to a hybrid 
of the fourth or the sixth generation. But the wild 
cattle of Chillingham Park are almost contrasts 
rather than parallels; for they have no properties 
whatever of “a breed,’—no qualities of a mere 
variety,—no “points”? whatever of the very nu- 
merous and diversified class which characterize 
the countless breeds of domestic animals, and 
distinguish them from the untamed brutes of the 
forest ; and, of course, they could not degenerate, 
—they could not lose or deteriorate properties 
which they did not possess. The acquisition of 
such properties as constitute a changeable va- 
riety is inseparable from domestication ; the pro- 
duction of many and diversified groups of them 
is what constitutes the numerousness of the va- 
rieties of any species of domestic animals; the 
segregating of a group of good ones, to the ex- 
clusion of the bad, is what constitutes the art of 
breeding; and hence, the very proportion to 
which high breeding is carried, becomes, at the 
same time, both the proportion of domestication, 
and the proportion of liability to deterioration 
from breeding in-and-in. 
Consanguinous breeding operates with full ad- 
vantage in forming a new breed, or in developing 
and establishing any attainable group of new 
properties which may be desirable ; but it ought 
to be thoroughly abandoned the moment the new 
breed is fairly formed, and never practised for 
the perpetuation of a breed which is well estab- 
lished. It originated the good sheep and cattle 
breeds of Bakewell, and the excellent cattle breed 
of Colling; but it first degenerated and then 
utterly destroyed the new Leicester breed of 
cattle, and has, on multitudes of farms, impaired 
the constitution and deteriorated the value of the 
new Leicester sheep and the short-horned cattle. 
After a breed is formed, the continuance of it by 
breeding in-and-in may, indeed, produce one 
generation or two generations of animals of ex- 
traordinary tendency to fatness, of remarkable 
form, and sometimes saleable at enormous prices ; 
but it will just as certainly occasion the subse- 
quent generations to be far more than propor- 
tionally degenerated in precisely the same pro- 
perties. The bone of the in-and-in bred animal 
becomes very small in size, condensed in texture, 
and fine in form; the skin becomes very thin and 
porous, and ceases to afford any effectual pro- 
tection against catarrh, consumption, and some 
other diseases; the hair of the ox becomes thin, 
short, and smooth, and the wool of the sheep thin, 
short, and watery; the body becomes finely 
rounded at its salient points, and looks as if 
smoothly and delicately stuffed within the skin ; 
the carcass becomes greatly reduced in size, and 
possesses so powerful a tendency to fatten that, 
in all ordinary circumstances, it. looks as if in 
constant condition for the shambles; the extre- 
mities become fine and delicate, the head and the 
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