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The Bakewell Reproductive Center is named for Robert Bakewell, an English agriculturist who revolutionized livestock breeding in England. Using innovative techniques, he bred animals for food, rather than for wool or work, and created animals that matured faster with more meat. His livestock undoubtedly helped meet the growing demand for meat as the population shifted from an agricultural one to an industrial one. Robert Bakewell also made a huge contribution to the understanding of genetics and greatly influenced both Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel.
Born in 1725 in Leicestershire, England, Blakewell was the son of a farm manager. As a young man, he traveled around the countryside studying farm methods and animal anatomy. He took over the farm management job in 1760 at the death of his father, when he could put into practice the techniques he had devised during his travels. What he did was revolutionary in terms of land management, crop rotation and livestock breeding.
About a hundred acres of the farm were devoted to farming, while the rest remained in grass. He fertilized these hundred or so acres intensively with manure. He diverted rivers for irrigation, built canals, and experimented with different manure and flooding techniques.
Blakewell is more well know for his pioneering work in livestock breeding. The livestock in his time consisted of local types and non-distinctive breeds. Farmers normally kept livestock of both sexes together in the fields; as a result, breeding was random and uncontrolled with many different breeds with unique characteristics. The popular belief was that animals acquired their distinctive heredity from the land.
Blakewell challenged the notions of the day. From his horse trips, Blakewell picked the best stock with features he desired. He separated the males and females and controlled the mating process to emphasize the characteristics of the animals he desired. By selecting animals with at least some of the desired characteristics, and mating the offspring that inherited the same features with near relatives, Blakewell proved the technique of in-breeding in order to fix the type.
His greatest successes were with production of pedigree herds of the long-wooled Leicester sheep and Longhorn cattle. Not only was he the first to breed both sheep and cattle for meat, he also began the common practice today of leasing his prize rams for stud fees so that farmers could improve their own stock.
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