The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1894-06-09
Quality is strength.

At an institute recently, Prof.
Thomas Shaw said: The use of pure
bred sire that is also good individu-
ally secures transmission to the prog
eny of desirable form, of good di-
gestive and assimilative properties and
of quality, and it enables the individ-
ual to transform animals of common
or mixed breeding Tor that may be
said to be possessed of no breeding)
into animals that are just as good for
all practical uses as though they were
pure-bred and recorded in herd
book, flock book, or stud book.
in four or five generations where a
careful choice of sires is made and the
feeding and care are what they ought
to be. The use of well-chosen pure
bred sire will secure the transmission
of desirable forms to the progeny.
Take for illustration the typical beef
producing sire. He should be compact
in form, broad and level and well
fieshed on the back, roundly and
deeply sprung in the ribs, broad and
full and deep in the chest, wide at the
withers, full in the crops and in both
fore and hind tanks He should pos
sess large heart girth, a wide and level
loin, long and broad and deep
quarter, a full twist and thigh,
and should stand firmly on
short legs of medium bone. His head
should be medium in size, since by
what is known as the law of corrella-
ton the parts of the system that we do
not see may be judged by those that
we do see. Hence if the head were un-
duly coarse or strong we have an indi-
cation of undue strength of bone.
Choose sire of such form and pure
ly bred for generations and we will as
suredly get an approximation in form
in the progeny, no matter what the
nature of the dam, II of common stock
or mixed breeding. But digestion and
assimilation of a certain kind are just
as certainly transmitted as form,
though this fact is too little recognized
by those who keep stock The power
in pure bred sires to transmit the
qualities just named is ut least equally
important with the power which they
possess to transmit properties which
relate to form. That such properties
are transmitted may easily be illus
trated in the following manner: Take
a pure bred Hereford calf individually
good IN form. and put him in box
stall at the day of birth and
keep him there until twelve
months old. Take an animal of com
mon or mixed breeding, equal in age
and typical of the class from which he
has been chosen. Put him also in a
box-stall alongside of the former, and
keep him there until twelve months
old. Feed both calves literally and
on the same kinds Of food, and weigh
them at the end of the year. 1t will
be found that the Hereford has quite
left the common calf in the race. 1t
could not be otherwise The Here.
ford came of ancestry which pos
sessed those digestive and assimila'
tive properties which enabled him to sc
digest food that he turned it into meat,
hence he grew rapidly and matured
early. The other calf came of an an
cestry that did not grow so rapidly
nor mature so early because they pos.
sessed digestion of another character.
In both instances digestive properties
were inherited by the calves IN con
sonance with those possessed by the
parents, hence the difference in the
results.