[21] Probably few who have not critically examined the facts regarding close breeding in the improved Short-horns are aware of the extent to which it has been carried. On the 28th of March, 1860, at a sale of Short-horns at Milcote, near Stratford upon Avon (England) thirty-one descendants of a cow called "Charmer," bred of Mr. Colling's purest blood, and praised in the advertisement as "capital milkers and very prolific, not having been pampered," sold for £2,140, averaging about $350 each, and many of them were calves. The stock was also praised as "offering to the public as much of the pure blood of 'Favorite' as could be found in any herd." With reference to this sale, which also comprised other stock, the Agricultural Gazette, published a few days previous, had some remarks from which the following is extracted:
"It is unquestionable that the ability of a cow or bull to transmit the merit either may possess does in a great degree depend upon its having been inherited by them through a long line of ancestry. Nothing is more remarkable than the way in which the earlier improvers of the Short-horn breed carried out their belief in this. They were indeed driven by the comparative fewness of well bred animals to a repeated use of the same sire on successive generations of his own begetting, while breeders now-a-days have the advantage of fifty different strains and families from which to choose the materials of their herd, but whether it were necessity or choice it is certain that the pedigree of no pure bred Short-horn can be traced without very soon reaching many an illustration of the way in which 'breeding in-and-in' has influenced its character, deepened it, made it permanent, so that it is handed down unimpaired and even strengthened in the hands of the judicious breeder. What an extraordinary influence has thus been exerted by a single bull on the fortunes of the Short-horn breed! There is hardly a single choice pure-bred Short-horn that is not descended from 'Favorite' (252) and not only descended in a single line—but descended in fifty different lines. Take any single animal, and this bull shall occur in a dozen of its preceding generations and repeatedly up to a hundred times! in the animals of some of the more distant generations. His influence is thus so paramount in the breed that one fancies he has created it and that the present character of the whole breed is due the 'accidental' appearance of an animal of extraordinary endowments on the stage in the beginning of the present century. And yet this is not so;—he is himself an illustration of the breeding in-and-in system—his sire and dam having been half brother and sister, both got by 'Foljambe.' And this breeding in-and-in has handed down his influence to the present time in an extraordinary degree. Take for instance, the cow 'Charmer,' from which as will be seen elsewhere, no fewer than thirty-one descendants are to be sold next Wednesday. She had of course two immediate parents, four progenitors in the second generation, eight in the third, sixteen in the fourth, the number necessarily doubling each step farther back. Of the eight bulls named in the fourth generation from which she was descended, one was by 'Favorite.' She is one-sixteenth 'Favorite' on that account, but the cow to which he was then put was also descended from 'Favorite,' and so are each of the other seven bulls and seven cows which stand on the same level of descent with the gr. gr. g. dam of 'Charmer.' And in fact it will be found on examination that in so far as 'Charmer's' pedigree is known, which it is in some instances to the sixteenth generation, she is not one-sixteenth only but nearly nine-sixteenths of pure Favorite blood. This arises from 'Favorite' having been used repeatedly on cows descended from himself. In the pedigree of 'Charmer' we repeatedly meet with 'Comet'—'Comet' was by 'Favorite' and his dam 'Young Phœnix' was also by 'Favorite;' with 'George'—'George' was by 'Favorite' and his dam 'Lady Grace' was also by 'Favorite;' with 'Chilton'—'Chilton' was by 'Favorite' and his dam was also by 'Favorite;' with 'Minor'—'Minor' was by 'Favorite' and his dam also was by 'Favorite;' with 'Peeress'—she was by 'Favorite' and her dam also by 'Favorite;' with 'Bright Eyes'—she was by 'Favorite' and her dam also by 'Favorite;' with 'Strawberry'—she was by 'Favorite' and her dam by 'Favorite;' 'Dandy,' 'Moss Rose,' among the cows and 'North Star' among the bulls are also of similar descent.
There is no difficulty therefore in understanding how this name appears repeatedly in any given generation of the pedigree of any given animal of the Short-horn breed."
[22] Journal Royal Agricultural Society, volume 20, page 297.
[23] It may be said with truth, that the average health and vigor of a wild herd is much higher than it would be if the feebler portion of the young were reared, as in a state of domestication, instead of being destroyed by the stronger, or perishing from hardship; but if close breeding be, of itself and necessarily, injurious, the whole herd should gradually fail, which is not found to be the case.