This may be still another cause for a beginner in stock breeding exercising extreme care in the selection of his original stock. Even if the prime cost be higher than that of ordinary market stock the extra outlay expended on animals from well-known breeders, and out of old established herds, is certain to prove a good investment. There is just as great difference in the different families or strains of our domestic stock, as there is in the various human families and of animals, and it may be probably more true that the vast majority of the best of them are the descendants of a comparatively few ancestors. This is evident in almost everyone of the breeds of our improved stock, it is so in thoroughbred and shire horses, and so one might go through the whole list of domesticated or farm animals. It is therefore desirable that anyone who thinks of exhibiting his pigs should endeavour first to discover the particular tribes or families which, in the past, have furnished a large proportion of the winners, and then to obtain some of the specimens of those families which have been successful in the show yards and in the breeding pen. This combination is most important, as it does not necessarily follow that a line of blood which produces prize winners shall also produce animals which are not only good in type, character, and form, but possessed of prolificacy, free milking properties, and ability to raise large litters. The difficulty of finding in some of the mere exhibition herds this most desirable combination is due, in the main, to the far too frequent neglect of the utility points, the two aims of the herdsman are in too many instances the winning of prizes for their employers and the securing of a percentage of the prize money for themselves.