86 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



to that which received the second premium, that the making a 

 just award was an easy matter. As your Committee define 

 their province, awards in this class have very little reference to 

 points which would be regarded if the cattle were entered only 

 as standing stock ; yet as really superior training is so largely 

 dependent on good matching and symmetrical build, we take 

 pleasure in citing as an illustration the before-mentioned steers 

 of J. P. Reed. 



Lest our awards and report should fall under the suspicion of 

 flowing from the tastes and predilections of " fancy men " and 

 " gentlemen farmers," (in view of some fanciful feats which our 

 friend Reed's steers were made to exhibit, subsequent to their 

 legitimate trials,) we would state that our decisions were made 

 up without reference to such exploits, as we were in duty bound. 



Indeed, it is on purely utilitarian grounds that we award the 

 highest premium and praise to the kind and degree of training 

 exhibited in these cattle. It is not so much mere capacity for 

 draught, as an educated nimbleness in performing light work, 

 that farmers in general require. 



The peculiar use and advantage of this quality is often expe- 

 rienced in jobs where much turning, halting, backing, &c, is 

 required ; as pulling stones, stumps and the like, from the 

 ground, and hauling logs together in the woods. 



In winter work the constant liability to injury, which all work- 

 ing cattle are more or less under, is also reduced nearly to the 

 point of safety. When we reflect how generally cattle in these 

 employments are grossly abused, it seems hardly possiblo to 

 overestimate the value of those habits which tend to avert, if 

 they do not actually insure them against the accidents which 

 impend, and the abuses of teamstership which befall. 



How have our hearts bled with pity, and alternately burned 

 with indignation and shame, at the sight of those sad wrecks of 

 once noble structures of meat, muscle and bone ; while reflecting 

 how great a proportion of the lost strength was a wasteful 

 expenditure, incident to their lack of training, their awkward- 

 ness, and the cruelties thereby entailed. 



By the rules of the society, all persons are excluded from 

 competition as teamsters, except those under ago ; and your 

 Committee felt somewhat embarrassed in tho performance ot 

 their duties as arbiters in the matter of teamstership, from the 



