From a paper read by C. M. Winslow, Brandon, Vt., before the Ayrshire
Breeders, at their annual meeting, in Boston, Feb. 4, 1885:
Sometimes we meet with breeders whose only aim in their stock seem to
be to produce animals that shall be entitled to registry. To such I
have little to say, as their work is comparatively easy, and has but
few hindrances to success; but to those breeders who are possessed of
an ideal type of perfection, which they are striving to impress upon
their stock, I have a few words to say upon the hindrances they may
find in the way of satisfactory results. It is a law of nature that
the offspring resembles some one or more of its ancestors, not only in
the outward appearance, but in the construction of the vital organism
and mental peculiarities, and is simply a reproduction, with the
accidental or intentional additions that from time to time are
accumulating as the stock passes through the hands of more or less
skillful breeders.
The aim of the breeder is to not only produce an animal which shall
in its own person possess the highest type of excellence sought, but
shall have the power to transmit to its offspring those qualities
of value possessed by himself. A breeder may, by chance, produce a
superior animal, or it may be the result of carefully laid plans and
artfully controlling the forces of nature and subjecting them to his
will.
It is comparatively easy to accidentally produce an animal of value,
but to steadily breed to one type is the test of the skill of the
breeder and the value of his stock. However well he may lay his plans,
or however desirable his stock may appear, his ability to perpetuate
their desirable qualities will depend upon the prepotence of the
animals, and this prepotence depends, to a great extent, upon the
length of the line in which the stock has been bred with one definite
end in view. A man may, in his efforts to breed stock excelling in a
certain line, produce stock that shows excellence in other qualities,
but this will not compensate for a deficiency in the qualification he
is attempting to impress, nor is it safe to breed from any animal that
does not show, in a marked degree, those desired qualities.
There is one qualification without which there can be no success,
and that is a sound, healthy constitution, with good vital organs and
vigorous digestion; and any amount of success in other directions will
not compensate for lack of constitution, and disappointment is always
sure to attend the breeder who does not guard this, the foundation of
all success....
The very finest type of breeding and surest plans of success may be
entirely defeated by improper feed and care. A valuable herd may be
entirely ruined by a change of food and care; for those conditions
which have conspired to produce a certain type must be continued, or
the type changes, it may be for the better or it may be for the worse,
since stock very readily adapt themselves to their surroundings; and
it is just here that so many are disappointed in buying blood stock
from a successful breeder; for a successful breeder is necessarily a
good feeder and a kind handler, and stock may give good results in
his hands, and, if removed to starvation and harshness, quickly
degenerate. So, too, stock that has been bred on poor pasturage will
readily improve if transplanted to richer pastures and milder climate.
Therefore he who would prove himself an artist in moulding his herd at
will, must not only bring together into his herd many choice lines
of goodness, but must ever seek, by kind treatment and good care,
to change their qualities for the better, and by right selection and
careful breeding so impress these changes for the better as to make
them hereditary. If this course is persistently adhered to, the stock
will gradually improve, retaining the good qualities of the ancestry,
and developing new ones, generation by generation, under the hand of
the artist breeder.
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