Pedigree Animals

The old sayiug that blood will teil is equally trua and applicable to animáis aí to men. It is a belief in this theory that lies at the foundation of herd books, cattlo registers and all associations foi the importation or improvement of animáis. When a farmer lias stocked hi farm with hia favorito breed he is too apt to oonsider that there is little more for him to do than to preserve his herd in its present purity of blood. This too often leads to a neglect in making him self fully acquainted with the eicellencies or defects of its individual members. Then a man may have an excellent breed of oattle in which many of the animáis, if they could be tried by the pedigret; test, would be found to have descended frozn ancestors in do way remarkable for the better characteristics of the breed to which they belonged. There are existing differences amons the members of a herd of Jerseys or Holsteins as wide as any that separate the breeds. Consequently, in the improvement of a breed by the selection of animáis as breeding stock, where it can be ehown by pedigree that in addition to their own inherent fitness for certaiu purposes the selected ones have ed from progenitors possessing more than an average proportion of the dominant quality of the breed, a steady improvement may be confidently erpected. In other word8, there are individual families in broeds that possess, when compared with the average, either in a high or low degree, the exceüencies of the train. In the selection of the breeders it ia also to be reniembered that very mnch depende upon the male as well as upon the female. Henee the progeny of a cow of high milMng qualities, and a eire from a f amily deficiënt in that respect, althongh oi the same breed, is quite likely to show a falling off from the record of themother. These principies, however, although believed to be correct, do not necessarily preclude the idea of improvement from parents not of registered or pedigree stock. There are numeróos instances of nnusually fine milMng qualities to be found in cows of the so called native cattle that cannot be traced back to any ancestral stock. With such a dam and a male from a family of superior milkers, an improvement is not only possible but probable. At the least, it may be expected that the best traits of the mothei will reappear in her off spring. Through careful selection and breeding for a series of years, not only is a great improvement in cattle possible, but it is in this way that some distinct and valuable breeds have been formed, says the agricultnral editor of The New York World, I authority for the foregoing.