e always gives the locomotive
system and the father the nutritive; in which case the progeny is
necessarily inferior to the parents.

A careful consideration of the subject brings us to the following
conclusions, viz:

That in general practice, with the grades and mixed animals common in
the country, _close breeding should be scrupulously avoided_ as highly
detrimental. It is better _always_ to avoid breeding from near
affinities whenever stock-getters of the same breed and of equal merit
can be obtained which are not related. Yet, where this is not
possible, or where there is some desirable and clearly defined purpose
in view, as the fixing and perpetuating of some valuable quality in a
particular animal not common to the breed, and the breeder possesses
the knowledge and skill needful to accomplish his purpose, and the
animals are perfect in health and development, close breeding may be
practiced with advantage.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] Mr. Bates, although eminent as a breeder, was not infallible in
making his selections, and after long continued close breeding, he was
compelled to go out of his own herd to procure breeding animals.

[21] Probably few who have not critically examined the facts regarding
close breeding in the improved Short-horns are aware of the extent to
which it has been carried. On the 28th of March, 1860, at a sale of
Short-horns at Milcote, near Stratford upon Avon (England) thirty-one
descendants of a cow called "Charmer," bred of Mr. Colling's purest
blood, and praised in the advertisement as "capital milkers and very
prolific, _not having been pampered_," sold for L2,140, averaging about
$350 each, and many of them were calves. The stock was also praised as
"offering to the public as much of the pure blood of 'Favorite' as
could be found in any herd." With reference to this sale, which also
comprised other stock, the Agricultural Gazette, published a few days
previous, had some remarks from which the following is extracted:

"It is unquestionable that the ability of a cow or bull to transmit the
merit either may possess does in a great degree depend upon its having
been inherited by them through a long line of ancestry. Nothing is more
remarkable than the way in which the earlier improvers of the
Short-horn breed carried out their belief in this. They were indeed
driven by the comparative fewness of well bred animals to a repeated
use of the same sire on successive generations of his own beget