(89.) _Breeding from different families of the same race._--Mr Culley, though believing that no great harm can result from breeding in-and-in, yet appears to have in a manner preferred the preferable practice of breeding from different families of the same race; as he, for many years, hired his rams from Mr Bakewell, at a time when other breeders were paying a liberal price for his own valuable animals. This is of all methods deservedly the best, as the males, which are inter-changed, have always had shades of difference impressed upon them, by various soils and treatment, so that the defects of each family have a good chance to be counteracted by the perfections of the other. By this means the bad points are gradually exhausted, and their valuable properties as gradually heightened. Breeders have been much aided in the furtherance of this desirable plan, by the rearing of superior rams having become, of late years, a separate pursuit. The letting of them out to distant parts of the country has long been a branch of this speculation; diffusing some of the most valuable points of particular breeds, and leading to a spirit of competition. The practice has been reprobated, but, I presume, rather hastily; for with all its attendant evils, such as leading to deception, by what is termed the _making up_ of rams, it possesses excellencies which will, I hope, lead to its continuance. (90.) _Crossing._-The only other method of improving a breed is by crossing two distinct races, one of which possesses the properties it is desirable to acquire, and wants the defects we wish to remove. This, however, is a measure not to be recommended, and only to be resorted to when neither of the others will do; for it is scarcely possible to obtain the desirable properties without at the same time imparting qualities sufficient to neutralize them; and with which, in fact, we would rather dispense. To cross, as Mr Cleghorn remarks, any mountain breed with Leicester rams, with a view to obtain a propensity to fatten at an early age, would be attended with an enlargement of size, which the mountain pasture could not support, and the progeny would be a mongrel race, not suited to the pastures of either of the parent breeds. The folly of such a proceeding is beautifully shown in the failure of the attempts made, some years ago, to better the fleece of the mountain sheep, in the South of Scotland. To effect this desirable end, rams were brought from the Cheviot range of hills, and the consequences were, as described by Mr William Hogg, of Stobbo, in the _Quarterly Journal of Agriculture_, just what a preliminary consideration of the existing circumstances would have proved to be unavoidable. "The independent habits of the mountain flocks were lost, and a mongrel progeny, of a clumsy figure, occupied the lowest and warmest of the pastures. As they were very improper subjects to breed from, they were often a drug in the market: _but the store-master had