On Selective Breeding and Zootechnology

Pioneer and entrepreneur: He was the first to "rent" his breeds
instead of selling them

"Improvement had hitherto been attempted to be produced by selecting females from the native stock of the county, and crossing them with males of an alien breed. Mr. Bakewell's good sense led him to imagine that the object could be better accomplished by uniting the superior branches of the same breed than by any mixture of foreign ones..." [source: History of Hereford Cattle]

"Mr. Tomkins, when a young man, was in the employment of an individual, afterwards his father-in-law and had the especial charge of the dairy. Two cows had been brought to this dairy, supposed to have been purchased at the fair of Kington, on the confines of Wales. Mr. Tomkins remarked the extraordinary tendency of these animals to become fat. On his marriage he acquired these two cows, and commenced breeding from them on his own account. The one with more of white he called Pigeon, and the other, of a rich red colour with a spotted face, he called Mottle.

[...] What Tomkins did for the Herefords was to develope their early maturing properties, shorten their legs, refine their bone, improve their beef points and the quality of their flesh, and impart to them more thorough-bred character and impressiveness." [source: History of Hereford Cattle]

zoon + techne

[source]

"Dire que la Zootechnie est une science c´est exprimer un voeu et un besoin plutôt que constater un fat."