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r [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] British Dairy Farming. BY PROFESSOR J. P. SHELDON. The Breeding and Treatment of Dairy Cattle. It is beyond the need of argument that a. dairy farmer's success in his business depends to no small extent on his skill and judgment in select- ing and breeding dairy cattle. In some men this skill is an intuition, which is generally improved by thought and experience. Others there are who work it out for themselves without having any great natural talent in that direction. Yet others there are who do not acquire it, and do not even try, and in these cases no progress is made and no success attained. And so it is that, so far as quality is concerned, wemay find in many districts a great difference in the cattle that are bred. In a preceding article I mentioned Bakewell, of Dishley, whose reputation stands loathe effectthat he had an extraordinary natural and cultivated talent for mating animals together in such a way that faults of dam or sire were reproduced in a diminished degree, or not reproduced at all, in the offspring while at the same time the good points of either or both were not only preserved, but also developed. It was a natural gift in this man, and he worked it out with wonderful success in a period wheu the art of breeding was not popular and understood, as it has since become. He took in hand a breed of cattle—the Leghorn—whose greatest fame both rose and fell with him. He was equally successful with the Leicester sheep, and his rams fetched prices which had never before been heard of. He had a theory of breeding, no doubt, and that he should have left no record of i-it is a fact greatly to be deplored by every breeder who has succeeded him. Improving Breeds. The question of heredity, which is epitomized in the word "pedigree," is of the greatest possible importance in the art of breeding improved animals ot any kind. Heredity includes good and bad qualities alike, which are transmitted from parent to offspring, and the art of breeding con- sists quite as much in wiping out bad qualities as in perpetuating good ones. A fault of form, for example, which is hereditary in any given cow, may be improved away -by mating her and also her female offspring through several generations, with bulls bred from families of cows in whom that particular fault does not occur. Faults, too, of colour, of constitution, of size, of bone, of milking properties, or of almost anything else, save perhaps of actual and positive organic diseease, may similarly be disestablished by breed- ing against them through several generations. But at the same time m must be borne in mind that while these faulfil cannot be considered as having been finally eradicated until three or four generations have shown tendency to revert to them, it is only too eaiy to re-introduce them by using a bull from a h§ai in which they still exist. There is, unfartun&teljjj^a tendency of this sort in the animal world—a tendency to return to bygone types or peculiarities, many of which, if not all, are undesirable—and a. breeder cannot be sure that he has completely mastered it until he has seen no evidence of it in the last three or four generations of his cattle; even then it requires to be guarded against just as carefully as it was fought against, in order to prevent its re-introduction. It has been found by Charles Darwin, the greatest naturalist of all time, that cross-breeding gives a more or less defimteF impulse towards characters long before lost or got rid of; and the introduction of fresh blood, especially if it be entirely un- related, though of the same species or breed, may be easily followed ty the restoration of some earlier and unimproved type. This is the danger which breeders have sought t, avoid by .1 breeding in-iuid-in," as the constant mating of closely- related animals is tgroaaj^l but while there can be no doubt of fie su&ceSS^yf this line of breeding in the object de&ired, the^e is the danger of develop- ing tuberculosis if the line be followed very fttr. Purity of Breed. But on the other hand, purity of breed may be* maintained without necessarily incurring the danger of developing disease and reducing fertility. Fresh blood repeatedly introduced is necessary in order to avoid the danger spoken of; but it must be blood of the same strain and tribe, if purity of breed is to be preserved. The danger only exists when closely-related animals— males and females of the same herd or family— interbred generation after generation, to the ex- clusion of outside relations. But in most of our distinct breeds of cattle, and particularly in the Shorthorns, there are many pure-bred herds of one particular strain or other—of Booth or Bates blood, for example—and these herds can supply to each other all the fresh blood that is necessary to preserve the vigour and soundness of cattle! And, indeed, if such fresh blood of the same strain be introduced from other soils and climates, and even other countries, rather than from the same neighbourhood, the benefit will or may b?» all the greater. I am not aware that any great benefit has been derived from the few Short- horns that have been brought to this country from Canada. The Americans, however, perhaps even more than the Canadians, have found it advisable to continually obtain Shorthorns from Great Britain. But, in any case, it is an advan- tage to get bulls from the Northern Counties down into the Midlands, and from a limestone soil to any other kind on which cattle are kept. Most of our various breeds of cattle have now been bred towards a given model for each breed, wherever any pains at all have been taken. The approved model of a Shorthorn, an Ayrshire, or a Jersey, for instance, is well understood, and all breeders of note have aimed at this model, sothab there is no great difficulty in getting all the fresh blood required without danger to the model. A Good Bull. It has been pertinently said that the bull is half the herd," and it is therefore of the greatest importance that only good bulls should ever be allowed to propagate the species. But what is a good bull ? A well-formed, well-grown animal of good colour and constitution is not by any means necessarily a gcod bull, though a good bull must possess these qualities. I have elsewhere written (in Dairy Farming "): The capacity of a bull to transmit to his offspring his own peculiar properties, or mould, or excellencies of any kind depends on hid having inherited them from a succession of ancestors endowed with similar characteristics." There is many a good- looking bull, not true-bred as to qualities, whose power of impressing his good looks, or other good qualities, on his offspring has been found illusory, and this for two raasons, viz. his lack of prepotency, and the fact that his own ancestry has not been what it should have been. Such a bull, if he have a promising appearance, is so far a fortunate accident of nature, but there is no certainty whatever that his offspring will be as good looking as he. On the other hand, it occurs often enough that thoroughly well-bred bulls, and cows too, do not show up as well as they ought, or as they were reasonably expected to, and so far are not ornaments of the families to which they belong. Yet animals like these are always worth buying, and frequently well worth buying, at the moderate prices to which their want of good looks has consigned them. They are wortn buying because, their want of good looks being merely an accident of nature, they will in all probability produce offspring much better looking than them- selves. This sort of reasoning is applicable not only to looks, but to qualities too, as a general thing. Pedigree Bulls. But the sort of cows that dairy farmers want must possess milk, size, condition, and good looks. These are the qualities that command a good price in the market, and dairy farmers must needs be always breeding and always selling. Pedigree herds are the upper ten of bovine society, and dairy farmers who are in business for profit, and not for a hobby, cannot afford to have much to do with them. Indeed, pedigree bulls are sometimes a failure, when brought into an ordinary herd. I have known two marked instances of this. One of them got very few calves, and those not very good ones; the other got plenty—too many, in fact —■and scarcely any of them were equal to their mothers. This last one, indeed, very seriously lowered the quality of a high-class, non-pedigree herd which belonged to an old friend of mine who is now gathered to his fathers. But on the other hand. I have known cases where a pedigree bull had qualities, so marked and Commanding I that his impress was clearly enough seen tor many generations among the cattle of the neigh- bourhood. All this is a. lottery as matrimony is said to be. It would, however, be much less a lottery, if those who buybulls, be they pedigree or no, would take sufficient pains to assure themselves that the qualities they want in the bulls are hereditary, and not merely accidental. In order that the bull may improve the herd, he must needs come of a family which has long been noted for soundness and vigour of constitu- tion, otherwise he will not influence the offspring very much. But if he possess the strength, and vigour, his influence will be seen in many genera- tions. This, iudeed, is prepotency, aud it comes Withinthe meaning of heredity. I (To be contmued.)

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