THE BREEDER.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1003, 8 July 1879, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE BREEDER.

A SHOKTHORN MORAL. (From the Agricultural Gazette.) Whatever else the shorthorn sales of this 3'ear have taught us, they at least have shown that a discerning public will not have m ; scullan.eous!y-bred animals at anything much over market prices ; that they will have some reason for their faith, and only spend their cash upon such cattle as they can trust to reproduce in their offspring the like of their own good qualities, which is only to be done when there has been a definite method in their breeding. With this view, they find a sort of rule-of-thumb safety in buying only "pure this" or "pure that," pure Bates, pure Booth, pure Towneley, <&c., and which they go on crossing with the same sort "pure." The obvious explanation of this behaviour is that they have adopted as their method the ideas of the famous breeder, whoever he may be, whose sort in its purity they have elected to purchase and carry on. A time comes, of course (and in these days rather rapidly, from the terrible extent to which the early improvers have already carried this system), when this pure breading or rather continued in-braeding brings its penalty in inheriting physical infirmity, barrenness, and diminished size. You i have only to turn to the record of Sir J. ; Sebright's experiments to know this when you read of his deteriorating, by a process of repeated in-breeding, spaniels to lap-dog size, and his establishing by the same means the exquisitely elegant dwarf Sebright bantam. As soil becomes so poisoned from length of use that you cannot raiaj yaung healthy fowl any longer upon it, so d-n-.s blood become infertile from too co:i:inually localised a use of it. "Differentiation,"' as Mr. Darwin terms it, is required of some sort, either of blood itself, or of district, or of food, &c. Some thorough change is requisite. No one "differentiates" more than Mr. Drowry, and with what a grand result. To revere, however, a man who buys only pure Bates, or pure Booth, or pure anything, wherever he can find it (for specimens of any tribe altogether uncrossed are most rare), and puts to such cows only pure Bates, pure Booth, or pure anything else sires, is working in an easy and evident groove, and could go on so safely for ever—if it were not for the inevitable ultimate deterioration to which such absolute in-breeding leads. In the manipulation, then, of these old pure breeds—or, in fact, the more modern but yet resolutely iu blunt-cattle of later origin—it is essential, after a certain time, to introduce a fresh vitality. A cross must be taken to keep up at least size. The only danger is, that in the taking of this cross you may alter the character of

your herd. 0! course, tn hunting for a cross, you would wisely KP to in® oldest and best established families. These have each, their own sternly inherent type, which is almost certain to overpower, or at Uiast disturb, the type, if very differc tit > of the cattfa tf> which it is applied. At teaafc, if both families are old, they will have a stout fight for it, ending too often in a nondescript compromise such as nobody cares to view. lb requires almost genin* to conduct .inch experiments successfully. We have the record of all great improvers in their time and turn making many trials and mnny mistakes* often atso attaining an unexpected success. As regards the hiifhest. Hates bull-breeding families, their veins are already so full of the same blood that there is Uttle danger of losing character, ft is when you come to put Bates on Knight ley, Booth on Mason, Towneley on Bates, Ac., that yon run hazard. The only guide here appears to bo keen study of the elements at bottom of the two sorts you propose to combine, t cannot but thoroughly believe that such an experiment aa putting Royal Benedict (now unfortunately no more) on " Marctalini" cows must answer, owing to the 1 strong quantity they each hold of R. Ceiling's " Red Rose" blood in the lower layers of their composition. I remember tt butter passing a barret of purchased ale he did not quite approve through a monster puncheon in the hall cellar, which was the sote record of ancestral brewing, and which had some depth of grounds in it (hops or what it miu'hfc be deponent knoweth not), and it coming out, as I was informed, first-rate tipple. Surely this is but a common-sens© illustration of the good a breeder can do by running a wornout constitution through kindred elements in another vessel. What is kindred in each will surety combine and accumulate. To do this effectually in cattle requires thorough study of the earlier volumes of the Herd Book, which are, however, by no means so intricate aa they look at first sight, tf you* enter Osier's candelabra shop, your eye will be at once dazzled and confounded by the glare and apparent variety of brilliant goods. A pluc&less buyer might give in all once, and resign all idea of a satisfactory selection. Bnt_ the patient observer, after a brief period of resotufe study, will find that the patterns reduce themselves to a few, and that the difference is owing rather to size than fit;tire. As easy is the resolution of Herd Book difficulty. Somewhat severe comment has passed upon the fact that whereas Mr. Drewry's skill in the compilation of the Duke's herd found a splendid reward, his own cows fetched comparatively little I think tha reason was rather that the oescondants of Portia are poputar in Ireland more than this side the water, and with the Booth men, whereas this was a Bates congregation. I have not the catalogue handy, but I think on inspection too that an unaccountable bull or two appear tn the pedigree. Anyhow Mr. Drewry dtd not soil his best, and he got about as much as aorxiG of the Dufco a c»>ws solet tor. Ht3 taste is for the Cressidas, who descend from Mr. R. Booth's celebrated Cossack (1880), who was full of Mr. R. C'olltng's ki Ri'ii Host)" btooct- £h t>6tior eminent breeders do, that, whereas you cannot pack too closely of their own special stuff the butt-breeding families, you may yet wander to find outside families of great merit, which will be wanted some day, and only need rebarnThls view Mr. Cheney evidently takes, who has been buying a lot of Seraphiria.-*-With the pluck and judgment of Leicestershire, no one knows how to find his way better across a strange district than he does. " I've an eye for a country, he joyously remarked, as we went ptutiging across meadow and ditch, trying a short cut to the station from Mr. Larking s sale, and, thanks to his decision, we succeeded well. Those who follow hts line in shorthorn breeding will be as successful, for no one has been pluckier tn the market, and the reputation his herd has is solid. —"Sheldrake.