GENETIC STATISTICS IN ANIMAL BREEDING

My purpose in this Symposium honoring Dr. J. L. Lush is to review his work and, though it is hardly needed, to make clear the contribution he has made in applying genetic statistics to animal breeding. I prefer to approach the subject by looking at how he originally combined knowledge from husbandry or management practices, genetics and statistics, in approximately this order, to formulate the foundation of the modern science of animal breeding. As problems arose and could be defined in a mathematical or statistical sense, he and his students found answers to them in a way useful to improving domestic animals. The emphasis on breeding plans did not preclude interest and work on problems of a more theoretical nature. He clearly contributed to problems of almost purely theoretical interest, at least at the time; but, it is safe to say that most of this work was started by seeing an actual problem arise that generated the germ of the idea for the theoretical work. It seems necessary to try to give some idea of the status of animal breeding knowledge about the time Dr. Lush received his formal training. He earned the B.S. degree in Animal Husbandry from Kansas State College in 1916, an M.S. degree from the same school in 1918 and the Ph.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1922. Dr. Lush's first academic position was in research at Texas A&M College, where he remained from 1921