The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-09-12 00:00:00

"REVERSION" OF ANIMALS.

At the recent meeting at Hartford of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, Professor
Brewer read a paper on the reversion of thoroughbred
animals. After noticing the improvement in live
stock in modern times, which he described as much
greater than the contemporaneous improvement in the
tillage of the soil, he observed that in our most
celebrated breeds their especial excellencies are the
accumulated improvements of successive generations.
Now, as this improvement, which is often ace ,m-
-panied with changes of structure, is the result of care
on the part of man, it is often maintained that if
the care be withdrawn then the breed will retrace
its steps, and go down by the same road that it
came up (only vastly faster, the downhill road
being the easiest travelled), and become what it sprang
from, or, to use the familiar phrases which are
supposed to be more scientific, it "reverts " or " re-
turns " to the original type. This dogma is applied
to sustain certain theories regarding the permanence
of "original types" and the fleeting nature of "ac-
quired characters." It has peculiar weight with a
great class of farmers who do not wish to expend the
requisite care on their cattle to have the test, but con-
tent themselves with stock of more moderate ex-
cellence. Knowing that thoroughbreds are costly
property, they think it "fancy stock," holding its
excellence and value by a very uncertain tenure. It
is a precarious or speculative investment, liable to
"revert," or at least to decline on their hands;
and this belief is one great cause impeding
the general iinprovement of live stock. Professor
Brewer observed that at the preceding meeting of
the Association this dogma was strongly insiste i on
in a paper, in which it was said—" The hog has been
greatly changed by domestication, and yet when left to
himself he soon returns to the original type. During the
late war some of the moet improved breeds were turned
loose and left to shift for thoneelves. Three years
after I found them possessing all the physical charac-
teristics of the wild boar of Europe." At the reading
of the paper the author verbally stated that a similar
effect was obseived in respect to short-horn cattle.
Scarcely a month later there was a meeting held in a
neighbouring State. A herd of short-horns was to be
sold at New York Mills, and stock-breederaflocked from
near and far to attend. Theycame from England, they
came from California, they even came from the very
State where they had just been told that short-horns
were so prone to return to their original type. The sales
amounted to a quarter of a million of dollars, and
in a very short time those misguided men, unheeding
the„warnings of science, bought 109 head of cattle for
382,000 dolt., an average of more than 3,500 doll.. per
head. For the beet five cows, belonging to a particu-
larly excellent strain called the " Duahem," dm? paid

158,000 dole., an average of 31,640 dole. per head.
These prices indicate the faith of those men in the
future permanence of the acquired characters of that
herd. Professor Brewer went on to say that he had
been for some years looking for proof that thorough-
bred stock ever returns to the original type (whatever
that may mean) under any conditions or circumstances,
but the results had been entirely negative. He has now
determined to make a more careful inquiry, in the hope
that if there is any such great law we may somewhere
find the proof in specific examples. Therefore, he said,
"I have issued to quite a number of breeders a circular
of questions, and I ask from members of this Associa-
tion any aid they may be able to give. I find it easier
and pleasanter to do it by printed circulars, because
when, with innocent simplicity, I have waked some of
those haughty breeders (who pay SA much for a bleat-
ing calf as I get for two years' salary) if their short-
horn cattle ever reverted into something else I have
thought that I sometimes detected a smile, which I
feared indicated a want of that regard which is due to
the members of this learned Association in their pur-
suit of knowledge under difficulties."