Eli Whitney (sheep breeding innovation)

Eli Whitney is best known for inventing the cotton gin, but he also contributed to sheep breeding innovation. He developed a method called "line breeding," which involved carefully selecting and mating sheep with desirable traits over generations. This approach aimed to enhance qualities like wool quality and herd health consistently. By doing so, Whitney helped improve sheep productivity and breeding efficiency, laying groundwork for more systematic animal breeding practices. His work made sheep herding more profitable and set the stage for modern methods in livestock genetics.