Bred for Perfection: Shorthorn Cattle, Collies, and Arabian Horses Since 1800 PDF
Preview Bred for Perfection: Shorthorn Cattle, Collies, and Arabian Horses Since 1800
Bredfor ‘Perfection SHORTHORN CATTLE, COLLIES, AND ARABIAN HORSES SINCE 1800 — Margaret €, Derry TheJohnsHopkins UniversityPress BALTIMORE AND LONDON ©2003TheJohnsHopkinsUniversityPress Allrightsreserved.Published2003 PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmericaonacid-freepaper 246897531 TheJohnsHopkinsUniversityPress 2715NorthCharlesStreet Baltimore,Maryland21218-4363 www.press.jhu.edu LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Derry,MargaretElsinor,1945— Bredforperfection;shorthorncattle,collies,andarabianhorses since1800 / MargaretE.Derry. p.cm.—(Animals,history,culture) Includesbibliographicalreferences(p. )andindex. ISBN0-8018-7344-4(hardcover:alk.paper) 1. Shorthorncattle—Breeding—History—1gthcentury. 2. Collie—Breeding—History—a1othcentury. 3. Arabian horse—Breeding—History—a1othcentury. I. Title. II. Series. SF199.S56D472003 636.08'2’og—deai 2002015859 AcatalogrecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. For my husband, Douglas L. Derry, EC.A. CONTENTS Preface 1x One Developing a Modern Method of Purebred Breeding 1 Iwo Shorthorns and Animal Improvement 17 Three Producing Beautiful Dogs 48 Four Patterns in Collie Breeding and Culture 67 Five AWorld Market for ArabiansTakes Shape 103 Six The Arabian Horse Registry of America: Preserving Purity 139 Concluding Remarks 156 Notes 163 Essay on Sources 183 Index 189 PREFACE “Thebest [purebred] animals intheworldhavealways beenbredforthe love of them or thelove of breeding and caring for them, rather than purelyforprofit,’wroteamid-twentieth-centur’yCollieexpert.*Dopure- bredbreedersreallyproduceanimalsmoreforthejoyofbreedingthanfor themoneytheygenerate?Thisbookattemptstoanswerthatquestion,and others aswell, byexaminingthehistory, overtwo centuriesinBritainand NorthAmerica, ofthreebreeds: Shorthorn cattle, Colliedogs, andAra- bianhorses.The subject of animal breeding isapproachedfromitscen- ter; that is, breeding practices in relation to their supportive structures. Thebook outlines what breeders did in actual breeding programs and puts those accounts into ahistorical context to help readers understand patterns in purebredbreeding, howmarkets relate to breeding programs, and.how aBritish-American connection could be so significant to the whole system.I.hopeto demystify the underlying mechanics ofmodern purebredbreeding,givinglayreadersanoverviewofthesubject.Purebreds illustratehowselectionbyhumanscanmoldanimals.Butwhilemostpeo- pleunderstandtheidea ofbreedpurity andits relation to themanipula- tionoflife,manyhavelittleappreciationofhowpurebredbreedingworks _ orwhatdrivesit.: _ Modernpurebredbreedinglies insomezonebetweenscienceandcul- ture;bothinfluencedthedevelopmentofthemethod.Whilethebookin- dicatesthecomplexityofthesystem'srelationtoscienceandculture,Icon- centratemore onhowpurebredbreedingwas andis practicedandonthe way its supportive structures developed. I hope, though, that seeinghow purebred breeding functions will makesome readerswant to pursue the former topic in more depth.We could, for example, understand better what aspectsofthe methodevolvedsolelyfrom certain cultural environ- ments and why, even today, many ofthese culturallybased features wear *M.Denlinger, The CompleteCollie, 3ded.(Richmond,Va.:Denlinger’s,1949), 9. ix PREFACE a scientific mask.The subject is rich, and beyondthehistory of animals’ relations withhumanity, itcandomuchto explainthewayhumanknowl- edge andperceptions about the worldgenerallyhave evolved over time. ThebreedingmethodIdiscussbeganitsdevelopmentinlateeighteenth- century Britain. Earlier efforts at “pure” breeding (producing, for exam- ple, Pekinese dogs in China, Arabian horses in Arabia, and Greyhounds inEgypt)*didnotsharecertaincriticalfeatureswiththisBritishendeavor. First, even inthebeginning, thenewmethodwas farmore widelyused.It affected many breeding operations, not a few isolated ones, and many breeds within different species. Second, it established a breeding proce- durethatintheendproducedmuchgreatervariationinmanyspeciesthan hadbeenseenbefore.Third, itlinkedpedigreekeepingto breedingmeth- odology in a novel but ithportant way: by a public registry. At various times before the eighteenth century, some individual breeders kept track of the ancestry of animals they bred themselves, but these were isolated personal records. (Early Arabian horse breeding was an exceptionto this pattern; animal genealogy was preserved over generations by word of mouth.) Publicpedigrees collected inwritingthe ancestryofanimals be- longing to a “breed”from many breeding programs over extended peri- ods. Extensive pedigree keeping of this nature allowed for the develop- ment of more clearly defined breed types and led to a global spread of breed varieties.The system resulted in the creation of highly marketable animals, certifiedto betrueto a clearlyspecifiedbreedtypebasedonreg- istered pedigrees that record the animals’ ancestral backgroundin public studbooks. In eighteenth-century Britain, people began to experiment with selec- tivebreeding ideas, usedinvarious formsatdifferenttimes inmanyparts oftheworld.Throughthisexperimentation,theredevelopedaformalized andpublicizedprocedurewithestablishedrulesthatcouldbeusedto cre- ate new “breeds.”When the method became connected to public record keeping in Britain in the earlynineteenth century, a new purebred breed- ing system was born. A particularly significant trade in “purebred”ani- mals evolvedbetweenBritainandtheUnitedStates duringthenineteenth century, and that international market would mold the system’s entire structure. Because certain patterns specific to Shorthorn breeding and transatlantic markets from the 1830s until 1900 shaped the wayall pure- bred breeding developed, an analysis of Shorthorn affairs is critical. *J.Clutton-Brock,ANaturalHistoryofDomesticatedAnimals,2ded.(Cambridge:Cam- bridgeUniversityPress, 1999), 47. PREFACE Within the Shorthornworld, for example, there appeared theearliest at- tempts atregulating internationalmarkets throughpedigrees. IprovidenarrativesabouthistoricalShorthornproductionthatexplain howcertainpatterns evolved:whyBritishnobles cameto valuethegenet- ics ofHubback,abullfromanunknownbackgroundthatafarmerfound grazingbytheroadside;whatmadeearlynineteenth-centurycattlemenin OhiocountrypurchaseparticularstockinBritain;andwhyanEnglishman would spend over $40,000 to buy a seven-year-old red-and-white cow, named 8th Duchess of Geneva, in the United States.This transatlantic trade affected breeding strategies in other countries and revealed, for ex- ample, why Canadian farmers shifted their agricultural operationsin the 1890s simplybecause acertainbull, Roger, wasrelatedto Shorthorns im- ported into the UnitedStates tn 1817. EventsintheShorthornworldshapedandconsolidatedastructurefor the new purebred system, regulating the breeding of animals even more effectively. At this stage modern purebred breeding became connected withthereproductionofanimalsbasedpurelyonbeautyorfancypoints. Bylookingatthepurebreddog fancyfromthelatenineteenth centuryto thelatetwentieth,weseehowthemethodsupportedthe “sport”ofbreed- ing. Because Collies wereoneofthefirstbreeds toreceive attentionwhen selection for canine beauty evolved in Britain (and then in NorthAmer- ica), early characteristics of the international dog fancy are apparent in Colliehistory. CentraltothedynamicsoftheColliefancy,as withShort- horns, was the marketbetweenBritain andthe UnitedStates. Butmarket questions couldbe related to otherissues in complex ways. For example, when the wealthyfinancierJ. P, Morgan decidedin 1906 to compete with anotherNewYorker,SamuelUntermyer,fortherighttobuyahigh-priced British-bredCollienamedSquireofTytton,Morganmightnothavebeen interested solely in agood investment. Hevalued another expensive Col- lie primarily as apet: Sefton Hero,abeautiful gold-and-white champion fromBritain, was Morgan’s companionandregularlysleptunderhis bed. Collie breeding shows that single animals could dictate the future of a breed. Wishaw Clinker, a Collie born in the 1890s, came to represent deeply embedded conflicts in Collie breeding thatare stillwithus today. Another British dog, Anfield Model, influenced the direction of Collie fortunes inthe UnitedStates over the twentieth century. ShorthornsandColliesoriginatedinBritainthroughmodernbreeding methods.To determine how the significant breeding and marketing pat- terns found in those two breeds could becomepervasive in world animal breeding,IassesswhathappenedwhenAmericandemandaroseforanan- Xi PREFACE imalnotcreatedunderthesystemorinBritain. LookingatArabianhorse breeding reveals how importantthese ubiquitous underlying characteris- tics could be to the dynamics of global purebred breeding.The Arabian existedinfixedtypeas abreedwhenitleftitsEasternhomeland,longbe- fore anyWesterners began to produce “purebred” Arabians.The horses would becomepart of a world trade through markets that originally ex- istedbetweenBritainandtheUnitedStates.Americanbreeders imported ArabiansbredinBritain,buttheyalso soughtthegenetics ofBritish-bred animalsinothercountries.Ultimately,however,Americanbreederswould look for Arabians from the national breeding programs of many coun- tries.The Arabian horse storyleads notjust to the breeding ofArabians inBritainandtheUnitedStates,butalsototheirhistoryinArabia,Egypt, Poland,Russia, andSpain.Americandemandforthehorsesbredinthese countries ultimately created a modern global Arabian world. Breeders in Germany, Holland, Sweden,Australia, Canada, Brazil, andArgentinafol- lowedAmericansinbuyingEgyptian,Polish,Russian,andSpanishhorses. A boom in Arabian horses developed, fueled by American tax laws that encouraged buying thehorses atveryhighprices. Stories aboutArabianhorse breedingin this bookhelp us understand howglobalproduction ofArabiansledto curious patterns, whichsome- times caused difficulties.The vision of oneEnglish couple,Wilfrid and LadyAnneBluntandtheirdaughter, LadyWentworth,wasabletochange andatthesametimepreserveancientbreedingofArabiansfromtheEast, then ultimately to spread their genetics to the world. In the process one stallion,Skowronek,borninPolandin1908, cameto influencethebreed- ing ofArabians everywhere inthe worldandtoaffectinternationalpedi- grees. Pedigree culture coulddictatehorsebreeding, anditexplainedwhy purebred Arabians born in Spain were once considered unacceptable in theworldmarketandwhyaparticularstallion, KurdoIII, wasblamedfor the presence of impure Arabians in South America. Breeders faced seri- ous questions.What made an Arabian pure by Eastern standards?What made anArabianauthenticto originaltype?Howdidimprovementrelate to preservation of original type? Couldpedigrees preserve purity? A fewother comments. First, the stories I tellhere involvespecific an- imalsaswellasbreedersandtheirprogramsforspecificreasons.Onemust appreciate the ideals of the breeders, which were particularly evident in theanimalstheyproduced.Certainaspectsofbreederideologycanbeun- derstood in no other way than through the animals. Second, to make spellingconsistent,IhaveconformedthroughouttoAmericanusage,even withinquotations.Andthird,thebookreliesheavilyonbreedertestimony, XU PREFACE which emanated from specialist journals and booksrelating to specific breeds. The material offered two types of information. Onerelated to facts such as dates, outlines of breed standards and rules for pedigrees, andthepartgovernmentsplayedinpurebredaffairs.Thematerialalso re- vealedbreeders’opinionsandcontemporarybiases andthereforeprovided criticalinsightintowhattheythoughtovertime.Forexample,abookwrit- teninthe1940s onthecare andhistoryofCollies stated, “Castrateddogs are monstrosities, even worse than spayed bitches.The horrible practice ofcastration ismentionedhere onlyto sayitshouldneverbe done.”*To- day most veterinarians recommendcastrating all males that will not be used forbreeding. Literature on various aspects of purebred breeding has enriched this book. Humanist scholars (particularly geographers and historians) have studied this breeding method to explore both the spread of animal im- provement in the modern age andideas aboutthe relation of animal so- cietyto human society. JohnWalton, ageographer, studied the evolution of purebred livestock andits effect on the overall improvement of farm animals.Heconcentratedonthebreedingofcattleandsheepandassessed how much improved general cattle and sheep production resulted from using the new system.** Harriet Ritvo, a historian, looked at how the method andattitudes toward animals generally dovetailed with views on human culture.Shemadeitclearthatanthropomorphismcoloredhuman vision about what constituted a modern, improved creature.’ Historians *Denlinger, Complete Collie, 72. **J,Walton, “The Diffusion ofImprovedShorthorn Cattle in Britain during the EighteenthandNineteenth Centuries,” TransactionsoftheInstituteofBritish Geographers, n.s., 9 (1984): 22—36; “Pedigree andProductivityin the British andNorthAmeri- can Cattle Kingdomsbefore 1930,’Journal ofHistorical Geography 25 (1999): 441-62; “PedigreeandtheNationalHerdcirca1750-1950,”AgriculturalHistoryReview(hence- forthAHR) 34 (1986): 149-70; and “The Diffusion ofImprovedSheep Breeds in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Oxfordshire,’Journal ofHistorical Geography 9 (1983): 175—95. For information on purebred cattle breeding and improvement of generalherds see M. Derry, “The Development of aModernAgricultural Enter- prise: Beef CattleFarming in Ontario, 1870-1924" (Ph.D. diss., UniversityofTo- ronto,1997);M.Derry, Ontario’sCattleKingdom:PurebredBreedersandTheirWorld, 1870— 1920(Toronto:UniversityofTorontoPress, 2001). TH.Ritvo, TheAnimalEstate(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,1987);H.Ritvo, ThePlatypusandtheMermaidandOtherFigmentsofthe ClassifyingImagination(Cambridge: HarvardUniversityPress,1997);H.Ritvo, “Race,BreedandMythsofOrigin:Chil- linghamCattle asAncientBritons,’Representations39 (1992): 3-22. X11 PREFACE ofagriculturehavealso addressedthetopic, explainingthe systemwithin theworldoffarming.*Ienlargeontheexcellentmaterialfoundinallthese sourcesbydiscussingbreedingtheoryinmore detailandinrelationto ac- tual animals, bylinkingtheworkofbreedassociations tomatters ofgov- ernment, and by explaining how pedigree standards drove breeding pro- gramsin relation to markets. Thebreedingsystemunderdiscussionis, ofcourse, onlyone aspectof thelargerissueofhumanrelationshipswithallanimals, andscholarsfrom various otherfields—agriculturalscientists, animalbiologists, andschol- ars concernedwithdomesticationbeingafew—have also touchedonthe subject. Usuallythey do so in connection with their specialtyorwith the larger topic of general animal improvement.They normally do not ana- lyze the dynamics ofthe breedingmethod described here, and they tend to referto itonlyinsuchgeneraltermsasselectivebreeding, regulatedby breederassociations.**Theymakelittleefforttoseparatethemeaningand implications ofprivate andpublicpedigrees orto showhowsignificantit couldbetolinkpublicpedigreerecordingto certainidentifiablebreeding practices and markets. But scholars specializing in these areas have done much interesting work on general animal improvement and the implica- tions ofmajormovementslike domestication. I find the whole topic of purebred breeding interesting for practical, artistic, and academic reasons. Fifteen years of breeding, showing, and sellingpurebredbeefcattlehastaughtmesomethingoftheinternalworld ofpurebred animalbreeding andthe dynamics behindpurebredbreeding practices.The animals interest me on anotherlevel as well.They are sub- jects for my paintings, as I try to capture on canvas the special meaning thatanimalshaveforhumanity.Iwanttoportraytheancient,unconscious bond between domestic creatures and people.The art finds buyers, so I mustbe conveying somethingofmyfeelings. Myinvolvementwithpure- bredbreedingonpracticalandartisticlevelsledmetostudytheevolution *See R.Trow-Smith, A History ofBritish Livestock Husbandry, 1700-1900 (London: Routledge andKeganPaul, 1959);M. LernerandH.Donald,ModernDevelopmentsin AnimalBreeding(NewYork:AcademicPress,1966),155—86;andA.Fraser,AnimalHus- bandryHeresies(London: CrosbyLockwood, 1960), 21-31, 33—49, 51-67, 69—89. *™See, for example, R. Coppinger and L. Coppinger, Dogs (NewYork: Scribner, 2001), 126, 244—45, 250-51; Clutton-Brock,NaturalHistory,40—48;T.Grandin,ed., GeneticsandtheBehaviourofDomesticAnimals(London: AcademicPress, 1998);J. Lush, “Notes on Animal Breeding,” manuscript, 1933; and J. Lush, AnimalBreeding Plans (Ames, Iowa: CollegiatePress, 1937). X1V
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