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The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication

Note 7 — Chapter XVII · ON THE GOOD EFFECTS OF CROSSING, AND ON THE EVIL EFFECTS OF CLOSE INTERBREEDING.

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Mr. Wright, ‘Journal of Royal Agricult. Soc.,’ vol. vii., 1846, p. 204. Mr. J. Downing (a successful breeder of Shorthorns in Ireland) informs me that the raisers of the great families of Shorthorns carefully conceal their sterility and want of constitution. He adds that Mr. Bates, after he had bred his herd in-and-in for some years, “lost in one season twenty-eight calves solely from want of constitution.”

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