Page:The Evolution of British Cattle.djvu/130

 animal must be bred from. Before his time calves that showed a tendency to fatness were turned into veal, while those not showing this tendency were retained. Bakewell reversed the process, and secured animals likely to breed him stock for the butcher rather than for the plough.

After long observation, with close inspection not only of the living but also of the animal post-mortem, and with many experiments in the use of such feeding stuffs as were then in use at Dishley, Bakewell set up a type for himself and to that type bred persistently. With the light cast upon Bakewell's work by Mendel's discovery we can now see that some of the stock from which Bakewell bred may have been mere masqueraders and must have produced him not only masqueraders again but also some others that were frankly undesirables. Bakewell's original stock were certainly not pure, for they were drawn from the north and from the south, from parts of the country in which the recently imported Dutch cattle, themselves possibly of several breeds, had mingled with several others. To eliminate from these those that did not breed true to the type he desired, Bakewell took the quickest and surest method, namely that of mating close relations; for in those days of almost haphazard breeding, two closely related animals were much more likely to be pure for the