Part 1 (1/2)
The Principles of Breeding.
by S. L. Goodale.
PREFACE.
The writer has had frequent occasion to notice the want of some handy book embodying the principles necessary to be understood in order to secure improvement in Domestic Animals.
It has been his aim to supply this want.
In doing so he has availed himself freely of the knowledge supplied by others, the aim being to furnish a useful, rather than an original book.
If it serve in any measure to supply the need, and to awaken greater interest upon a matter of vital importance to the agricultural interests of the country, the writer's purpose will be accomplished.
THE PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
The object of the husbandman, like that of men engaged in other avocations, is _profit_; and like other men the farmer may expect success proportionate to the skill, care, judgment and perseverance with which his operations are conducted.
The better policy of farmers generally, is to make stock husbandry in some one or more of its departments a leading aim--that is to say, while they shape their operations according to the circ.u.mstances in which they are situated, these should steadily embrace the conversion of a large proportion of the crops grown into animal products,--and this because, by so doing, they may not only secure a present livelihood, but best maintain and increase the fertility of their lands.
The object of the stock grower is to obtain the most valuable returns from his vegetable products. He needs, as Bakewell happily expressed it, ”the best _machine_ for converting herbage and other animal food into money.”
He will therefore do well to seek such animals as are most perfect of their kind--such as will pay best for the expense of procuring the machinery, for the care and attention bestowed, and for the consumption of raw material. The returns come in various forms. They may or may not be connected with the ultimate value of the animal. In the beef ox and the mutton sheep, they are so connected to a large extent; in the dairy cow and the fine wooled sheep, this is quite a secondary consideration;--in the horse, valued as he is for beauty, speed and draught, it is not thought of at all.
Not only is there a wide range of field for operations, from which the stock grower may select his own path of procedure, but there is a demand that his attention be directed _with a definite aim_, and _towards an end clearly apprehended_. The first question to be answered, is, what do we want? and the next, how shall we get it?
What we want, depends wholly upon our situation and surroundings, and each must answer it for himself. In England the problem to be solved by the breeder of neat cattle and sheep is how ”to produce an animal or a living machine which with a certain quant.i.ty and quality of food, and under certain given circ.u.mstances, shall yield in the shortest time the largest quant.i.ty and best quality of beef, mutton or milk, with the largest profit to the producer and at least cost to the consumer.” But this is not precisely the problem for American farmers to solve, because our circ.u.mstances are different. Few, if any, here grow oxen for beef alone, but for labor and beef, so that earliest possible maturity may be omitted and a year or more of labor profitably intervene before conversion to beef. Many cultivators of sheep, too, are so situated as to prefer fine wool, which is incompatible with the largest quant.i.ty and best quality of meat.
Others differently situated in regard to a meat market would do well to follow the English practice and aim at the most profitable production of mutton. A great many farmers, not only of those in the vicinity of large towns, but of those at some distance, might, beyond doubt, cultivate dairy qualities in cows, to great advantage, and this too, even, if necessary, at the sacrifice, to considerable extent, of beef making qualities. As a general thing dairy qualities have been sadly neglected in years past.
Whatever may be the object in view, it should be clearly apprehended, and striven for with persistent and well directed efforts. To buy or breed common animals of mixed qualities and use them for any and for all purposes is too much like a manufacturer of cloth procuring some carding, spinning and weaving machinery, adapted to no particular purpose but which can somehow be used for any, and attempting to make fabrics of cotton, of wool, and of linen with it. I do not say that cloth would not be produced, but he would a.s.suredly be slow in getting rich by it.
The stock grower needs not only to have a clear and definite aim in view, but also to understand the means by which it may best be accomplished. Among these means a knowledge of the principles of breeding holds a prominent place, and this is not of very easy acquisition by the ma.s.s of farmers. The experience of any one man would go but a little way towards acquiring it, and there has not been much published on the subject in any form within the reach of most. I have been able to find nothing like an extended systematic treatise on the subject, either among our own or the foreign agricultural literature which has come within my notice. Indeed, from the scantiness of what appears to have been written, coupled with the fact that much knowledge must exist somewhere, one is tempted to believe that not all which might have done so, has yet found its way to printers' ink. That a great deal has been acquired, we know, as we know a tree--by its fruits. That immense achievements have been accomplished is beyond doubt.
The improvement of the domestic animals of a country so as greatly to enhance their individual and aggregate value, and to render the rearing of them more profitable to all concerned, is surely one of the achievements of advanced civilization and enlightenment, and is as much a triumph of science and skill as the construction of a railroad, a steams.h.i.+p, an electric telegraph, or any work of architecture. If any doubt this, let them ponder the history of those breeds of animals which have made England the stock nursery of the world, the perfection of which enables her to export thousands of animals at prices almost fabulously beyond their value for any purpose but to propagate their kind; let them note the patient industry, the genius and application which have been put forth to bring them to the condition they have attained, and their doubts must cease.
Robert Bakewell of Dishley, was one of the first of these improvers.
Let us stop for a moment's glance at him. Born in 1725, on the farm where his father and grandfather had been tenants, he began at the age of thirty to carry out the plans for the improvement of domestic animals upon which he had resolved as the result of long and patient study and reflection. He was a man of genius, energy and perseverance.
With sagacity to conceive and fort.i.tude to perfect his designs, he laid his plans and struggled against many disappointments, amid the ridicule and predictions of failure freely bestowed by his neighbors,--often against serious pecuniary embarra.s.sments; and at last was crowned by a wonderful degree of success. When he commenced letting his rams, (a system first introduced by him and adhered to during his life, in place of selling,) they brought him 17_s._ 6_d._ each, for the season. This was ten years after he commenced his improvements. Soon the price came to a guinea, then to two or three guineas--rapidly increasing with the reputation of his stock, until in 1784, they brought him 100 guineas each! Five years later his lettings for one season amounted to $30,000!
With all his skill and success he seemed afraid lest others might profit by the knowledge he had so laboriously acquired. He put no pen to paper and at death left not even the slightest memorandum throwing light upon his operations, and it is chiefly through his cotemporaries, who gathered somewhat from verbal communications, that we know anything regarding them. From these we learn that he formed an ideal standard in his own mind and then endeavored, first by a wide selection and a judicious and discriminating coupling, to obtain the type desired, and then by close breeding, connected with rigorous weeding out, to perpetuate and fix it.
After him came a host of others, not all of whom concealed their light beneath a bushel. By long continued and extensive observation, resulting in the collection of numerous facts, and by the collation of these facts of nature, by scientific research and practical experiments, certain physiological laws have been discovered, and principles of breeding have been deduced and established. It is true that some of these laws are as yet hidden from us, and much regarding them is but imperfectly understood. What we do not know is a deal more than what we do know, but to ignore so much as has been discovered, and is well established, and can be learned by any who care to do so, and to go on regardless of it, would indicate a degree of wisdom in the breeder on a par with that of a builder who should fasten together wood and iron just as the pieces happened to come to his hand, regardless of the laws of architecture, and expect a convenient house or a fast sailing s.h.i.+p to be the result of his labors.