been recently successful in the
show yard, or in extreme cases, that the sire itself shall have been a
prize winner. It is urged that the mere fact that a sire has succeeded
in winning one or more prizes is a proof that it possesses in a marked
degree those qualities which are most highly prized. This may be
conceded, yet there is no certainty that the mating of this winning sire
even with dams that have also been prize winners shall result in the
production of young the equal of the parents, since the winners at the
various shows may be of dissimilar types and breeding.

But the case would be quite different if the winning sire and dam came
from the same old established herd in which the animals had been bred
for generations on similar lines. It is this concentration of certain
qualities in generation after generation which renders the pedigree
animal so intensely prepotent, particularly when mated with animals of
an ordinary character or not possessing concentrated breeding. Indeed,
it may be safely assumed that the power of a parent to impress its own
individuality and qualities on its produce, depends to a very large
extent, if not entirely, on the comparative hereditary extent of those
qualities in comparison with the other qualities possessed by itself, or
by the animal with which it may have been mated.

In other words, it is contended that the sire or the dam has not the
power to impress certain of its characteristics on its young, merely
because of its sex, but that this power depends on the proportion in the
sire or dam of the blood of progenitors who possessed in a marked degree
certain qualities.

It is with the breeding of animals as with the manufacture of a compound
article. The character and quality of that compound will vary according
to the proportion of the various ingredients used in its manufacture. It
is to this law or fact that the marked impressiveness of certain strains
of blood is attributable.

Again, the marked and long continued success of the blood of the
animals bred by a few of our most successful breeders of live stock is
in the main due to the fact that the owners set up a standard and
persistently selected and bred together only animals possessing to a
greater or lesser extent the particular qualities which together
comprised that standard. There is not the slightest doubt that in
carrying out their system they were often compelled to mate animals
related in blood the one to the ot