High breeding

“ Breeders have carried this principle so far as frequently to advocate the growing of plants in the environment most likely to produce the change desired, as, for instance, cultivating tall plants like twining beans in the north or at high altitudes if it is desired to produce a dwarf type or, vice versa, breeding the plants in the south and at a low altitude if a giant or tall type is desired. ”

“ Their history is essential, as it shows their introduction into the United States, their progress during the various stages of their improvement, and the comparative value of the improved and ordinary breeds. A knowledge of the best mode of breeding and management is of still higher importance. The first will enable the breeder to preserve the high character of the animals in his hands, or perhaps still farther to advance them; while proper management and feeding will prevent that deterioration and loss from disease, which frequently subtract so much from his profits. ”

“ But the case would be quite different if the winning sire and dam came from the same old established herd in which the animals had been bred for generations on similar lines. It is this concentration of certain qualities in generation after generation which renders the pedigree animal so intensely prepotent, particularly when mated with animals of an ordinary character or not possessing concentrated breeding. ”

“ Now it has always been known that breeders could produce a race of markedly peculiar form or characteristics by selecting the individuals possessing this quality in the highest degree and breeding only from these. The breeder depends upon heredity, variation, and his selection of the individuals from which to breed. Similarly in nature new species have arisen through heredity, variation, and a selection according to the laws of nature of those varying in conformity with their environment. ”

“ The breeder who wishes to combine fancy and utility properties in any kind of live stock must breed only from specimens that are meritorious in both directions, selecting much more carefully than when breeding for one class of properties. ”

“ The risk attending too close breeding as in the breeding of pure breds is also avoided provided that the herd from which the sires are bought is sufficiently large to furnish a change of blood, yet of similar breeding. ”

“ If he wish to perpetuate the difference, to form a breed with the peculiarity in question strongly marked, he selects such male and female individuals as exhibit the desired character, and breeds from them. Their offspring are then carefully examined, and those which exhibit the peculiarity the most distinctly are selected for breeding; and this operation is repeated until the desired amount of divergence from the primitive stock is reached. ”

“ If even in such minute particulars as these, hereditary transmission may be distinctly seen, it becomes the breeder to look closely to the "like" which he wishes to see reproduced. Judicious selection is indispensable to success in breeding, and this should have regard to every particular—general appearance, length of limb, shape of carcass, development of chest; if in cattle, the size, shape and position of udder, thickness of skin, "touch," length and texture of hair, docility, &c., &c. ”

“ It is well known that too close breeding, or consanguineous breeding, or breeding in and in, as it is variously called, if continued long, has a bad effect on the offspring, weakening the stock, while judicious crossing of varieties within certain limits of difference has a good effect, strengthening the stock and increasing its fertility. ”

“ The same methods of selection that establish a breed are used to maintain it, or to establish strains. In ordinary breeding there are two other principles that are sometimes called into play. One is prepotency, the other is inbreeding. By prepotent we mean having unusual power to transmit characters to offspring. Suppose a breeder has five yards headed by five cock birds. The male in yard two he does not consider quite as fine as the bird in yard one, but in the fall he finds the offspring of bird from two much better than the offspring from yard one. ”

“ From a species in this condition modern poultry breeders have made hundreds of distinct varieties. The easiest method of making a variety in domestication is to select specimens for breeding as near the desired type as possible, and to breed only from a few individuals in each generation which come nearest to the ideal type. ”

“ If is well known to stock breeders that the closer animals are bred in-and-in, that is, the nearer the relationship of father and mother, the more prominently the traits of the parents appear in their children and become fixed in the breed. It is evident that in the earliest epoch of the human family, the closest inter-breeding must have prevailed without restriction, as it does in every species of the lower animals. ”

“ But for breeding they are found utterly useless; for though they may themselves be uniform in character, they yield during many generations astonishingly diversified offspring. The breeder is driven to despair, and concludes that he will never form an intermediate race. But from the cases already given, and from others which have been recorded, it appears that patience alone is necessary; as Mr. Spooner remarks, “nature opposes no barrier to successful admixture; in the course of time, by the aid of selection and careful weeding, it is practicable to establish a new breed.” ”

“ By breeds, are understood such varieties as were originally produced by a cross or mixture, like the Leicester sheep for example, and subsequently established by selecting for breeding purposes only the best specimens and rejecting all others. In process of time deviations become less frequent and greater uniformity is secured; but there remains a tendency, greater or less in proportion to the time which elapses and the skill employed in selection, to resolve itself into its original elements, to breed back toward one or other of the kinds of which it was at first composed. ”

“ The sheep-breeder can, however, avoid the effects of in-and-in breeding, and at the same time preserve the character of his flock, by seeking rams of the same breed, possessing, as nearly as possible, the characteristics which he wishes to preserve in his own flock. ”

“ Let the progeny of these be bred to another pure bred male of the same breed, but as distantly related to the first as may be. Let this plan be steadily pursued, and although we cannot, without the intervention of well bred [120] females, obtain stock purely of kind desired, yet in several generations, if proper care be given in the selection of males, that each one be such as to retain and improve upon the points gained by his predecessor, the stock for most practical purposes will be as good as if thorough-bred. ”

“ There is one circumstance, however, which the breeder occasionally forgets, but which is of as much importance to the permanent value of his stock as any careful selection of animals can be—and that is, good keeping. ”

“ By reference to the habit of the fur-seal, which I have discussed at length, it is now plain and beyond doubt that two-thirds of all the males which are born, and they are equal in numbers to the females born, are never permitted by the remaining third, strongest by natural selection, to land upon the same breeding-ground with the females, which always herd thereupon en masse. ”

“ Among stock-breeders generally there is a very strong aversion to in-breeding, although it was the method of the great pioneers and is still the method in a modified form, called line breeding, among breeders of the highest class. ”

“ The preferable style of breeding for the great majority of farmers to adopt, is neither to cross, nor to breed from close affinities, (except in rare instances and for some specific and clearly understood purpose,) but to breed in the line, that is, select the breed or race best adapted to fulfill the requirements demanded, whether it be for the dairy, for labor or for beef in cattle, or for such combination of these as can be had without too great sacrifice of the principal requisite ”

“ It is interesting at this point to recall one of the most common differences between plant and animal breeding which is seldom clearly recognized by practical breeders. Plant breeders most commonly strive to produce new races or breeds with distinctive characters which will reproduce their desirable qualities without continuous selection; while animal breeders almost wholly limit their attention to selection within the breeds already established, to maintain them in the highest state of efficiency possible. ”

“ But the breeders cause every visible part of the body to vary as seems good to them, and within the last fifty years they have really brought about very considerable changes in many breeds. Their method of procedure is carefully to select for breeding those birds which already possess a faint beginning of the desired character. Domesticated animals have on the whole a higher degree of variability than wild species, and the breeder takes advantage of this. ”

“ Line-breeding is a systematic form of breeding which preserves the excellence and characteristics of the parent stock. In other words, it perpetuates the blood of both sire and dam so that it is not eventually lost as is the case in cross-breeding. ”

“ It is in this power of prepotency that one of the chief benefits from the use of a pure bred sire or dam arises. By the term pure bred is not meant merely that the names of a certain number of the forbears of the animal shall have been recorded in the register of the breed, but that the animal shall for a certain number of generations have been bred on similar lines so that it shall possess a considerable amount of concentrated blood. ”

“ Great care should be exercised in the selection of the males for breeding stock. Only the large and healthy animals of good color should be used and all others should be killed and their skins marketed, or the live altered animals sold for pets, while they are in good condition. Never allow a breeder to die of old age. Sell the pelts early and use young stock for the purpose.
While the animals do not always breed strictly true to color, the white markings may be greatly reduced and the general stock improved by selected breeding. ”

“ By line breeding you can get almost any color you want. If you wanted to get solid red, say, out of a mixed lot, you should breed your reddest male to your reddest female. Then breed the father to his reddest daughter and the reddest son to his mother. Continue in this way and eventually you will get solid reds.
For commercial purposes, however, we think it is best to get new males every now and then. If you have only one male at the start, you should get a new one when the young ones of your first litter are old enough to breed. ”

“ In breeding, the smallest individuals which are suitable in other respects for breeders, should be selected in order to keep down the size and offset the tendency to breed larger in successive generations. ”

“ With our true domestic animals, on the other hand, fertility is perfect, and is very little affected by changed conditions. Thus, we see the common fowl, a native of tropical India, living and multiplying in almost every part of the world; and the same is the case with our cattle, sheep, and goats, our dogs and horses, and especially with domestic pigeons. It therefore seems probable, that this facility for breeding under changed conditions was an original property of the species which man has domesticated—a property which, more than any other, enabled him to domesticate them. ”

“ To insure successful and beneficial crossing of distinct breeds, in order to produce a new and valuable variety, the breeder must have an accurate knowledge of the laws of procreation, and the varied influences of parents upon their offspring. All the breeds in this country are crosses, produced either by accident or design. Crossing does not necessarily produce a breed; but it always produces a variety, and that variety becomes a breed only where there is a sufficiency of stamina to make a distinctive race, and continue a progeny with the uniform or leading characteristics of its progenitors. ”

“ The far too common practice is to purchase each boar required from a totally different herd, or from one of quite dissimilar breeding, with the result that there is not the slightest uniformity in the appearance or character of the herd, or of the mature animals when ready for market.
It is far too frequently forgotten that the chief value of a record of the pedigree is that by it one can trace the breeding of the animal's progenitors, and thus one is enabled to form some opinion of the probable produce—providing it is possible to learn the chief characteristics of the progenitors. ”

“ If one of the parents were deficient in stamina the produce might conceivably be more robust, and it might also occasionally happen that the mixture of the qualities or properties possessed by the parents would result in improvement, as happens when a distinct new breed is originated; but as a rule the good and the bad qualities of the produce from the mating of two animals of diverse breeds are in direct proportion to the qualities possessed by the parents. ”

“ Yet with all this advance in our understanding, the methods of breeding that can be recommended for the use of practical breeders have changed but little in the last twenty years, the greatest change being primarily in the greater surety with which we now make recommendations. ”

“ The breeder is thus enabled through selecting the traits or characters that are wanted and crossing them with a well-known stock, to produce almost any trait or quality that he desires. This law makes it possible to estimate the results of cross breeding with almost mathematical exactness. Improved varieties of fruits, grains and vegetables have been produced in this manner, and with animals marvelous results have been achieved. ”