The Norfolk weekly news-journal. (Norfolk, Neb.) 1900-19??, 1910-03-04

PIG. xxxIv.-BREEDrNG PRODUCES UNI
FoRMITY.
like, the offspring will tend to be like
these good parents. But here the law
Of variation comes in again, causing
some Of the offspring to be better and
some poorer than the parents. In this
case, however. the poorer animals will
be considerably better than the poor
ones of the preceding generation and
the good ones will be better than the
best of the previous year. Again the
poorer animals are discarded and the
better ones saved. In this way the
standard of excellence is improved
from year to year.
To accomplish much, improvement
by selection must be guided by a man
who has Il definite ideal in mind. He
must know exactly the kind of ami
mai he is working for and should Sc
lect his breeding stock with this type
in mind. In this way is developed
strain of animals that are very
much alike in all their characteristics.
Though they still tend to vary, these
merly, and n more uniform lot of ami
mails results. This uniformity is due
in large part to the fact that each
parent has behind II long line of an
cestors of similar type. An animal
does not get all its characteristics
from its parents. Part Of them come
from the grandparents. part from the
great grandparents and part from more
remote ancestors. Clearly. then. the
more nearly all these ancestors resem-
bic certain fixed type the more uni
form the offspring will he. IT is large.
ly by continued selection that all the
improved breeds of domestic animals
have been developed. 1t is this ability
TO produce uniformly good offspring
that makes pure breds so much more
valuable than animals of common
breeding.
The tendency Of an animal to resem-
BILE some of its remote ancestors more
closely than its immediate parents is
called reverSiOn or atavism. Thus. oc-
casionally n calf of hornless breed
VIII show horns, or pig Of certain
breed will show n color that is not
found in the breed today. Reversion
cannot he guarded against. The best
that can he done is to prevent the use
OF reverted animals as breeders.
Mutations.
Any race of living things, whether :,
be animals or plants, will occasionally
produce mutation, or, as it is com.
monty called, Il sport" This is an in.
dividual differing to Il marked extent
from the general type of the race or
breed. If il is Il true sport. it will
produce its own characteristics in its
offspring, and thus Il new strain or
breed is developed.
This now strain is distinctly differ
cut from the type from which it came.
and its offspring show little tendency
TO revert TO that type. The hornless
breeds Of cattle were developed from
sports. The ucCtarinc is sport from
the peach, and the weeping willow is
a sport from the ordinary willow.
Sports, when Of the right kind, are Of
great value in originating new types
and breeds, but they are seldom of
any particular value to the ordinary
breeder
Latent Characters.
A point that is of much value in
practical breeding operations is the
fact that the characters which an ami
NAL possesses are not always devel-
oped. Such characters are called la
tent, while the ones that are developed
are called dominant. Characters which
J are latent in one animal may become