The Principles of Breeding

The Principles of Breeding by S. L. Goodale sets out, on its title page, glimpses at the physiological laws involved in the reproduction and improvement of domestic animals. The title page gives the author as secretary of the Maine Board of Agriculture. The book describes a man whose stock, in 1784, brought him 100 guineas each, with his lettings for one season amounting to $30,000 five years later. The book says that certain physiological laws have been discovered and principles of breeding deduced and established, while admitting that some of these laws are as yet hidden from us.

The book says the evidence from observation and from the best practical breeders goes to show that each parent usually contributes certain portions of the organization to the offspring, and that each has a modifying influence upon the other. One writer calls a farmer incomparable and says he had eminently united both these circumstances in his flock at Glynde.