Robert Bakewell of Dishley, was one of the first of these improvers. Let us stop for a moment's glance at him. Born in 1725, on the farm where his father and grandfather had been tenants, he began at the age of thirty to carry out the plans for the improvement of domestic animals upon which he had resolved as the result of long and patient study and reflection. He was a man of genius, energy and perseverance. With sagacity to conceive and fortitude to perfect his designs, he laid his plans and struggled against many disappointments, amid the ridicule and predictions of failure freely bestowed by his neighbors,--often against serious pecuniary embarrassments; and at last was crowned by a wonderful degree of success. When he commenced letting his rams, (a system first introduced by him and adhered to during his life, in place of selling,) they brought him 17_s._ 6_d._ each, for the season. This was ten years after he commenced his improvements. Soon the price came to a guinea, then to two or three guineas--rapidly increasing with the reputation of his stock, until in 1784, they brought him 100 guineas each! Five years later his lettings for one season amounted to $30,000!
With all his skill and success he seemed afraid lest others might profit by the knowledge he had so laboriously acquired. He put no pen to paper and at death left not even the slightest memorandum throwing light upon his operations, and it is chiefly through his cotemporaries, who gathered somewhat from verbal communications, that we know anything regarding them. From these we learn that he formed an ideal standard in his own mind and then endeavored, first by a wide selection and a judicious and discriminating coupling, to obtain the type desired, and then by close breeding, connected with rigorous weeding out, to perpetuate and fix it.
After him came a host of others, not all of whom concealed their light beneath a bushel. By long continued and extensive observation, resulting in the collection of numerous facts, and by the collation of these facts of nature, by scientific research and practical experiments, certain physiological laws have been discovered, and principles of breeding have been deduced and established. It is true that some of these laws are as yet hidden from us, and much regarding them is but imperfectly understood. What we do not know is a deal more than what we do know, but to ignore so much as has been discovered, and is well established, and can be learned by any who care to do so, and to go on regardless of it, would indicate a degree of wisdom in the breeder on a par with that of a builder who should fasten together wood and iron just as the pieces happened to come to his hand, regardless of the laws of architecture, and expect a convenient house or a fast sailing ship to be the result of his labors.