Sheep Breeding Problems.

King Country Chronicle, Volume III, Issue 125, 25 January 1909, Page 3

Sheep Breeding Problems.

" The following- paper was read by John P. Ray, before the Pennsylvania Live Stock Breeders' Association: — Is in-and-in breeding a correct practice to follow? We answer yes ahdirio. Safe with wise selection, and a mighty lever for improvement carried down to the danger line, and a powerful engine for destruction cai - ried beyond that point. Manj'are the one-time noted breeder who have plunged headlong into that pitfall. They became giddy over success and were too proud and narrow to recognise merit in other strains.- They harped upon concentrated bleed for potency, forgetting that type was the measure of individuality, and that type depended upon type-breeding. Wilhlhaw ;close relationship is mating admissable? Never with sire ancT daughter and sister. If conditions seemed to desire it I.would mate half brother and sister*- where the dams of each were of remote blood, and, the progeny o? half-brother by the same sire whose clams were remote .from each other. This is a favourite cross with me. Some strains will bear more in-breeding than others.. The Wilkes strain of trotting horses is conspicuous in this respect. To rriy mind the greatest danger that lies before American merino breeders is the kindred blood of all our flocks.

Are so-called violent crosses dangerous and unscientific? No; What are violent crosses? The mating of a finefleeced ewe with a cross-stapled ram, a pjain light-fleeced ewe with a wrinkly, dense, heavy-fleeced ram. Go beyond your ideal in a ram in the object sought for the first cross and to your ideal for subsequent crosses, and stay there. This is the cross-lot route to the goal. Is uniformity in a flock the test of a breeder's skill and a measure of the value of his blood-line? No, uniformity is but another name for mediocrity. The blood that improves a breed comes from the flqek of the breeder whose motto is good, better, be it. Never use a ram more than two seasons on the same eWes if it can be avoided. Who ever saw the third crop of lambs from the same sire and dams that wereequal to the first and second crops? If the nick is great, use a good son and then go back to the old ram. Who ever saw a really great ram that had a full brother a year younger that was his equal? I never did. I killed a brother to Don Dudley for mutton (and it was as good a fate as he deserved) , and sold a full brother to Kaiser for 2.50d01. to be slaughtered. Great are the mysteries of thebreeding problem. We have taken ,the American merino as special subject for discussion because he represents one of the highest fechievements of the breeders' art, and because the family should be preserved as the fountain-head to be drawn from for fleece improvement, and 'because the principles involved in his successful breeding apply to all breeds and kinds of domestic animals. Many long centuries have intervened since, one queried, "How much better is a man than Then put the man be hind tne sheep and be true to your own manhood and to your brother man. Let your name stand for all that is moral, honest, and upright, and let your methods and practices be an open book, read and known .to all men. If-he who makes two blades of grass to grow" where one grew before is a public benefactor, how much more is he a benefactor who enhances the meat or woolproducing capacity of a breed? Verily he should rank.among princes and not among mean-men. "But," says one, "are all these rules to be observed in. successful sheep-breeding, and are the principles laid down inviolable?" We answer" yes," and more' [n these strenuous day's' of heroic endeavour,' when r success is measured by marvellous achievement, ev«ry detaif that contributes to the end,- becomes an esambition €o ftamp Kis name and impress upair will benefit his fellawsj is-a weakling<. and ,unworthy % ofytrue<-manhoo4-and his generation. ,*.,'...