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feet small, the neck thin and drooping, the ears 
thin and broad, and the head of the sheep bluish, 
almost bare, and exceedingly subject to excoria- 
tion by the sun and to attacks from the fly. The 
entire animal decreases in healthiness and acti- 
vity, acquires tendencies to disease, becomes 
lean, dwarfish, and of a sickly appetite, and 
eventually loses the very capacity of propagation. 
The celebrated breeder Prinsep used strenuous, 
and expensive efforts, but without effect, to pre- 
vent in-and-in bred cattle from diminishing in 
size, Sir John 8. Sebright made many experi- 
ments by breeding in-and-in with dogs, pigeons, 
| and farm-yard fowls, and found the breeds in 
every instance to degenerate; and a gentleman 
tried in-and-in breeding with pigs till he found 
the females either becoming totally barren, or pro- 
ducing an offspring so small and delicate as to die 
almost immediately after being born. Mr. Hay- 
ward, who strenuously pleads for in-and-in breed- 
| Ing, says respecting these instances, “It may be 
| remarked that pigeons, dogs, and fowls, from their 
| long domestication, are already as much removed 
from a state of nature as nature will admit of; and 
| being bred and fed more to please the fancy than 
| for any defined object, it frequently happens that 
| the most desired qualities are the effect of disease 
| or distortion; and therefore, on the principles 
| laid down, it might be expected that weak, dis- 
_ eased, or defective males and femaies being se- 
lected and paired, would produce those that are 
still more so. In the ease of the pigs also, an 
effect is mistaken for a cause; these failures 
_ evidently arose from original defect, and a pecu- 
_ liar selection in pairing having been carried to 
an extreme, and not solely on the principle of 
breeding in-and-in.” We hold this to be a full 
though extorted confession from one of the 
| sturdiest advocates of consanguineous breeding, 
that the system, as regards all domesticated ani- 
mals, and especially those which have become 
divided into many varieties or breeds, is essen- 
tially and mightily mischievous. For since de- 
generacy actually follows, no practical man cares 
a rush whether this be ascribed to in-and-in 
breeding itself or to the mere accidents or ac- 
companiments of in-and-in breeding; and abso- 
lutely all the properties which distinguish the 
domesticated from the wild animals of a species, 
may, on certain principles of abstract or scienti- 
fic reasoning, be pronounced distortions from na- 
ture, or diseased malformations,—and, at all 
events, the most useful or the most agricultural 
of them possess the same tendency to deteriorate 
and disappear as those which address themselves 
chiefly to the fancy, or are most confessedly “the 
effect of disease or distortion.” Every breeder, 
then, who possesses a good stock, and wishes to 
preserve it from degenerating, must, every second 
or third year, introduce to it a new bull and new 
rams, and banish from it the old. The new bull 
and the new rams ought, as nearly as possible, to 
be of the same variety or shade of breed as the 
BREEDING. 
old, and from a pasturage and a climate strictly 
similar; they ought, in fact, to be quite the same 
in all respects as the old, with the simple differ- 
ence of possessing no relationship, or at least a 
very distant one; yet when the stock is not of 
prime quality or is characterized by some ob- 
servable defects, the new males ought, of course, 
to possess not only all the same excellencies as 
the flock, but also the additional ones which the 
flock wants. The practice of crossing might, at 
first sight, appear to be but the converse of that 
of breeding in-and-in, but it really involves addi- 
tional elements, and will form a fit subject for 
separate discussion. See the article Crossine. 
In order to prevent at once unsuitable pairing 
in properties, breeding at an improper age, and 
breeding at an unsuitable season of the year, the 
males of a breeding stock ought to be separately 
depastured from the females, and not permitted 
access to the latter except by rule and. upon 
system; and, in order to prevent the transmis- 
sion of such half-tender habits as might not be 
able to withstand the ordinary pasturing condi- 
tions of a farm, the males ought not to be kept 
under ‘better shelter or in more luxuriant cir- 
cumstances than the females. Ifa heifer be put 
to the bull before she attain two years of age, 
she will not have a sufficient supply of nourish- 
ment for both herself and the foetus, so that both 
will suffer damage in constitution; and if she be 
not put to the bull till after she has attained 
three years of age, she may be in too high con- 
dition, and will probably not become pregnant, 
A heifer is generally in fittest condition between 
the age of two years and that of two and a haif 
years. A bull ought never to be used at an 
earlier age than two years, and may be all the 
better if not used till three; yet, when not used 
till the latter age, he is in risk of becoming so 
ungovernable and dangerous that he must be 
killed, “ Many contend,” says Sir John Sinclair, 
“that the offspring of a bull, if well bred, be- 
comes generally better till he reaches seven or 
eight years, and indeed till his constitution is 
impaired by age, This doctrine, however, does 
not agree with the practice of Mr. Vandergoes in 
Holland; nor can the question be finally decided 
without a regular course of experiments.”—The 
proper age of the ram is not regarded as, by any 
means, an affair of such nicety as that of the 
bull. But an important rule, in reference to | 
every favourite ram, is to examine his progeny 
of the preceding year, to observe their good pro- 
perties and their defects in comparison with 
those of their dams, and then to assign to him 
only such ewes as are likely to avoid the defects 
and to propagate all the good properties.—On all 
farms, but particularly in high and exposed situ- 
ations, breeding ought to be attended to at such 
a season that the young may be produced when 
the supply of suitable food is most ample,—neither 
so early as to involve the young in the disasters 
of insufficient feeding, nor so late as to expose 
