UNIFORMITY IN TYPE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 30 May 1914, Page 10

UNIFORMITY IN TYPE.

SUGGESTIONS FOR ATTAINMENT

One of the greatest advantages of raising purebred stock is, or should be. the resultant uniformity of type, siz«, and production exhibited by the flock or herd in the course of a few years. Since all the individuals are of similar size, productiveness, habits, constitution, and appetites, the general care and management is very much simplified. Considering this, it is remarkable that a great many of our herds can only be classed as a miscellaneous collection of purebreds^ representing various types more or less useful 4 the whole presenting a weird conglomeration. Perhapt half-a-dozen individuals are of outstanding merit, and £he balance "tails off" to something far below mediocrity. The cause of this is usually to bo traced to poor judgment in selecting the foundation stock when the herd was being got together. - A number of females are' purchased, possibly because they were offered at a low price, probably because the purchaser relied too much on show-ring performances to the exclusion of such consideration as pedigree and proven ability as breeders. A large percentage of these females would be pregnant, and as probably the same sire had not been used on any three of them, the calves or foals will only make confusion worse confounded. Then, einof such dissimilarity exists, between the females it is not possible to select a male stable to all, so a sire is purchased at random. Be he ever bo good, it cannot be exoected of Mm that be will sire a uniform lot >of youngsters. Quite likoly the resulting disappointment disgusts the breeder and he changes the sire; he may go on repeating this for m any years, hoping to find on« that will "nick" with his females There can only be one\result • —partial or complete failure. ' If an intendini; breeder of ( any variety of farm stock will pause awhile before starting to purchase foundation p'-ock and give a little carefnl thought and mediation to thjo subject, many lasting; disappointments and troubiwr may be avoided. Remembering the old architect's advire to "live in your house a. year before you begin t<> Kuild it," will be of great assistance. A little thought and enquiry will show tJiat fhe truly colossal successes in breeding bavo been attained by.men whose fathers before tbem1 were breeders aiirl who took the^ uniform herd bred on similar lines, and which had been bred V ; the same place under the>,Fame mnditions Jis tn care, feeding and enyironmentv The'P?.tes.:.af>'l ; Bn-^th and the Wane;anella. Merinos provide instances that 6i>vild be multiplied indefinitely*

In a herd of indiscriminately bred mongrels, variation is wide and frequent.; all eolorSj shapes and sizes will he produced. In a nerd of carelessly mated, but purebred Ayrshires a similar variation of type, color and size will be noticeable, though of course in la lesser degree. In a herd of the same breed carefully selected and mated on similar blood-lines, in which in-breed-ing has been judiciously employed, one is struck with the marked similarity of one beast to the other. They will be "really" purebreds. The Oakbank herd of Ayrshires provides a remarkable instance, many breeders commenting on the regularity *>f type, size and markings—the latter, .as all students of the breed are awa*e, being elusive and difficult to fix: the tendency being to produce all shades-and variations from a light yellow to mearly black, from whole white to ■H'lrole brown.

Breeders should remember that the term '"purebred" :is «mly relative. In fact, American and South African Angora goat breeders do not permit the use of the words at all, substituting th© term "thoroughbred" therefor. They reason that no living being is in ;a position to state positively that any beast has been produced from stock into which no alien blood has been introduced at some time or other, and as it is known that most of the Angoras in Asia Minor have a dash of common blood, the likelihoqd of any goat being "pure-bred" these days is remote indeed.

An Ayrshire beast produced by a system of line-breeding of pure bulls on a mongrel cow as a basis, would, if the bulls were carefully selected for type and the correct degree of consanguinity come much closer to the definition of a true purebred than would a beast into whose make-up no extraneous blood had ever entered since the foundation of the herd, but which was produced by a long line of ancestors each widely differing from the others as to typo and bloodlines. This is a point well worth consideration. '

Ayrshires have been selected as providing the best popular and familiar example—it must not be inferred, therefore, that other breeds of stock in general do not exhibit very divergent type*. An important issue not to be lightly .passed over by one aiming at uniformity, is that some breeds' are distinctly •'di-morphous,'' i.e., they occur in two distinct types, which do not readily merge, and which are constantly produced by parents of the opposite type. Dovenport points out the fact well known to students of the older Hereford types, <:that the breed was almost dimorphic, in that two distinct types tended to appear with singular perverseness, refusing to blend or to undergo modification." It is also well known that Shorthorns occur in a variety of types, each standing out with extreme distinctness and not readily merged. In a breed where such occurs, the breeder must exercise extreme caution and forethought in selecting as his ideal one of the types, and determination and perseverance in holding to it through changing fashions and periods of depression. The rewards oi consistency in breeding a recognised, distinct, and uniform type are many and valuable. Buy-^ ers quickly learn that sires from such' a stud reproduce themselves with striking certainty, and this brings confinence in the stud and ' 'repeat orders." Even thoiigh the type may have a few minor objectionable points, these are readily tolerated because of the fixity of the excellencies. Such sires are invaluable in correcting faults, even of long-standing, in herds tc which they are introduced. They are almost invariably prepotent, and one can predict with a greater measure of certainty what will be the result of a given mating. A valuable axiom for every breeder to paste in Jlis hat—"Select a tyne carefully and stick to it rigidly." By this means alone can a truly colossal success he achieved. —"R. 0.8.," in the Auckland Star.