VALUE OF INBREEDING

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 16212, 29 September 1924, Page 8

VALUE OF INBREEDING

The late James Little, says a writer in ' the Agriculture Journal, writing about tjie development of the Corriedale in’ New Zealand, states that of his original thirty-one sheep (there were only two (one ram and one ewe) that he liked; and he stuck to them as long as he dared —thus working unwittingly in accordance with the views of Mendelian investigators, and with Nilsson, of SvaLof, and other plant-breeders. He was worrying because he could not get a change of blood; but was it not that which enabled him to get his results as quickly as he did. He says he “was haunted by the fear of the results of this constant and unadvoidable inbreeding although inbreeding was practised by ithe most eminent breeders. He says later: “I do not call a man a breeder who gets fresh biood every year. He may have one or two good sheep every year; yet his 'flock will show all sorts of types in wool,< and will not have that level appearance all flocks should possess.” For ten years Mr Little got good results—good robust and prolific sheep. Then they became delicate in each succeeding generation —began to show more tail, more pigmouths, and rough hips, and they became subject to all the ills, etc; but, curiously enough, every year,he said, “I was getting a few, both rams and ewes, better than I ever bad.” Is not this where Mendelism might have helped him? Was it not because the sheep bred from the masqueraders of the second generation were increasing, while the “better than ever” sheep were the progeny of the pure ones?