PEDIGREE VALUE.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 99, 2 June 1914, Page 11

PEDIGREE VALUE.

IN CATTLE BREEDING. Dealing with the question of pedigree in his work on "Fifty Years among Shorthorns," Mr Robert Bruce, agricultural. superintendent of the Royal Dublin Society, says:—

"It has been said that in connection with cattle-breeding there is nothing more insinuating and seductive than a feeling on the part of breeders to allow judgment to be unduly influenced by mere pedigree records. The -disposition referred to is in evidence every day when we see purchases made anc> high prices paid for animals of ordinary merit simply on account' of their pedigrees being composed of what at the time may be considered fashionable blood. In too many cases, an. estimate of the value of a pedigree is formed in total ignorance of the individual merits of the great majority of the animals recorded in it." 1 It has long been the fashion to consider Shorthorns as belonging to families, and certain of those families come to be considered valuable, seeing the pedigrees trace back, on the female side, to animals known as having "been considered superior either from being vprize winners or the dams of winners. In some cases it is evident that purchasers of animals are satisfied if a . pedigree traces back, on the female side, to animals in well-known herds.

'' It cannot be too strongly urged that the value of a pedigree must, as of course, depend upon the individual merits of the animals given as the top crosses. .. Satisfied that the top crosses are right, and the pedigrees trace back to families known to have been carefully bred, one may safely assume that such pedigrees are valuable in the full sense of the word. Qn the other hand, little value can be attached to pedigrees in which the top crosses are known to have been indifferent, even though such pedigrees may trace back to families of cattle known to have been at one time superior. Many pedigrees record a system of breeding under which only certain strains of blood have been used, the importance of adhering to one line of breeding having received greater attention than that given to the merits of sires used in building up the pedigrees. In such eases there must necessarily have been a considerable concentration of blood, with a consequent prepotency' calculated to perpetuate a class of inferior stock.

"The reverse of the picture is, however, one of the most important to be kept in view by breeders, more especi-, ally, when tliey are selecting sires. When the individual animals recorded as top crosses in the pedigree of a bull are known to have been good, and at the same time have been bred upon what are termed close lines, there are good grounds for confidence that such a sire is calculated to •do much good in a herd. ' It has been stated that 'an inferior animal cannot be well bred,' yet cases might be "quoted where sires from closely-bred families have proved themselves gobd getters, even wliexi they were rather mean-looking animals. That such has been the, case has to determination in many a herdj Wfteil? fashion ran riot over wfiat wa§i ' fashionable blood,' through ; breeders using inferior bulls, sunder the'' belief that, being w:hat. was ; .Tftellbred, they must prove, good "The well-kno-Wn sayingthat. J } lik^,, begets like' is a safe maxim |pr T.br(?efi.ers to keep always, before must never be overlooked.that .' liilfe' is a very comprehensive term, and that in speaking of it animals hrast be alike in something more than in "mere shape or outward appearance. In • cattlebreeding pedigree is all-important, and after the experience of the harm done to the breed during the past century through the setting up of a -false standard of excellence belonging to a pedigree, it may be assumed that pre-sent-day breeders will now Idok for more than mere paper records, when forming estimates as to the value to be attached to a pedigree. . "The idea that 'like begets like' may be said to have been the original incentive which encouraged the record-, ing of i>edigrees by breeders who possessed good animals, and who could look back upon the sires and dams, etc., of ail animal,, and speak of their having been, possessed of more than ordinary merit. It is rather peculiar that, although from the .time of the, first recorded pedigrees, the sires have been considered as being of much more importance than the dams, it became the fashion to speak of • Shorthorns as belonging to certain families, and to over-estimate the value of the female side of a pedigree."