the dams--all mongrels and showing mongrel
origin more than he did. There seemed in many of them a tendency to
combine the defects of the grades from which he sprung rather than
their good points. In some, the quietness of the Short-horn
degenerated into stupidity, and in others the activity of the Devon
into nervous viciousness. Take them together they perhaps paid for
rearing, or nearly so. After using him another year, he was killed,
having been used long enough.

The other, we will say, served that same season a reasonable number,
perhaps four to six in a week, or one every day, not more. Few came a
second time and those for no fault of his. The calves bear a striking
resemblance to the sire. Some from the better cows look even better in
some points, than himself and few much worse. There is a remarkable
uniformity among them; as they grow up they thrive better than those
by the low priced one. They prove better adapted to the use intended.
On the whole they are quite satisfactory and each pays annually in its
growth, labor or milk a profit over the cost of food and attendance of
five or ten dollars or more. If worked enough to furnish the exercise
needful to insure vigorous health, he may be as serviceable and as
manageable at eight or ten years old, as at two; meantime he has got,
perhaps, five hundred calves, which in due time become worth ten or
twenty dollars each more than those from the other. Which now seems
the wiser purchase? Was the higher estimate placed on the well bred
animal based upon fancy or upon intrinsic value?

The conviction that a better knowledge of the principles of breeding
would render our system of agriculture more profitable, and the hope
of contributing somewhat to this end, have induced the attempt to set
forth some of the physiological principles involved in the
reproduction of domestic animals, or in other words, the laws which
govern hereditary transmission.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Local names for _lyery_, or black fleshed cattle.

CHAPTER II.

THE LAW OF SIMILARITY.

The first and most important of the laws to be considered in this
connection is that of SIMILARITY. It is by virtue of this law that the
peculiar characters, qualities and properties of the parents, whether
external or internal, good or bad, healthy or diseased, are
transmitted to their offspring. This is one of the plainest and most
certain of the laws of nature. Children resemble their parents, and
they do