THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



141 



Canterbury ewes, as they were sold during the week at 

 something near twenty pounds a-piece, to go to New 

 Zealand. 



Save but for the Romney Marsh, or " Kent's own," the 

 sheep show would have heen generally an excellent one, and in 

 no way more so than iu the " other long-wools" — or m other 

 words, the Cotswolds. There has rarely been a fiuer display of 

 theru, taken collectively, or with grander specimens to examine, 

 number after number. We fancy they told more than any 

 other on the local breeders ; and if Shorthorns will hereafter 

 improve their herds, the Cotswolds will do as much for their 

 flocka. Mr, Game was again signally successful, but all the 

 beat Gloucestershire men will be found to the fore, with, as 

 was admitted, better sheep than they had ever yet sent out. 

 Indeed, if anything, a Cotswold prize ram only looks, as he 

 lives, a little too well. He is terribly pampered and trimmed 

 and touched np for the show week, and like many an overdone 

 daudy, often fit for little more than to look at. Unfortunately, 

 this trimming has its effect on the judges, aud they put out 

 one of Game's best sheep, chiefly, as it would seem, from his 

 having been more ia use than the full-blown exquisites along- 

 side him. 



It is useless attempting to disguise the fact that the Rom- 

 ney Marsh sheep and the turn-rist ploughs furnished the great 

 fund for amusement in the somewhat dull and desolate show 

 week. With their long ugly heads and lop jackass ears, their 

 bad shoulders, hollow backs, and heavygut, their thin thighs, 

 flat sides, and narrow ends, the stranger wondered what they 

 could be there for ! Nevertheless the Kents have their advan- 

 tages : they stand rough weather — the wind and the rain and 

 the cold — better than any other breeds, while even a West- 

 end butcher will tell you that they die well, and have capital 

 flesh. But surely something more may be done with them, 

 or the Royal Agricultural Society's visit has been made, 

 and its three thousand pounds out of pocket expended alto- 

 gether in vain. If Mr. Sanday can show us what the Improved 

 Leicester is compared with Mr. Barford'a illustration 

 of him as he was — if a Babraham Down can im- 

 prove so much on the limited proportions of a Sussex 

 sheep — aud if the rough, ragged, uncultivated long-wool 

 can develop into the magnificent Cotswold — will they tell 

 us that nothing more, or rather nothing at all, can be done 

 for the Kent sheep ? We should be loath to say they 

 are not the sheep for the district, but we are quite ready to 

 maintain that so consistent a defiance of all the advantages 

 of quality and symmetry is not a type of the age we live in, 

 or a land-mark of the progression at which agriculture has 

 arrived. 



So far we have had to record a short show, but, on the 

 whole, a very admirable one ; and this was in no way qualified 

 by the pens of pigs. Never were these so well classified, and 

 scarcely ever have they been better. There was hardly an 

 indifferent pig on the ground, while many great winners of 

 last' season had, like Mr. Mangles' boar and sow, to be con- 

 tent with second places. The small pigs, blacks and whites, 

 were very admirable ; and foremost among these the improved 

 black Suffolks are making great way. Messrs. Crisp and Sex- 

 ton brought on their best from Norwich and Framlingham, 

 and ouly an echo of their previous successes. These were 

 backed by a number of the Yorkshire whites and spotted pigs, 

 but the clear choice from so strong a show was to be found in 

 the pen of three sows of a large breed. Mr. Hewer brought 

 two lots of Berkshires, and every one, including his own imme- 

 diate opponents, confessed that two such perfect and even pens 

 had never before been sent out. Their identity of character, 

 handsome heads, rare length, and fine flesh, put a stamp of 

 excellence on them that is not often equalled ; and one had 

 but to dwell over them and compare one pen with the other 

 to readily determine there was " no pig like the Berkshire." 



If, as was really the case, we say that the local classes were 

 only intended to please local people, and so put the coarse, 

 big-boned Sussex beasts in the same category with 

 the Kent sheep and ploughs, then the one weak 

 place of the meeting was the horses. Never have these 

 heen so generally indifferent. Rarely have there been 

 so few " exceptions" to save it. Indeed, the horses depended 

 altogether upon the Suffolks ; and the Reports we have heen 

 giving of late about Norwich and Framlingham had all kinds 

 of confirmation at Canterbury. From amongst these, again, 

 the two-year-old colt we spoke of at Framlingham as " the best 



the Barthropps ever bred," was, despite the rough compauy he 

 was in, indisputably one of the " stars" of the whole entry. 

 Whether we went to Towueley's Shorthorns, Webb's sheep, or 

 Hewer's pigs, there was nothing better in his way. If the 

 Suffolks can continue to show such substance, power, and 

 style, there will be nothing hereafter to excel them. The 

 Pilgrim is something more than a cart-horse. With his 

 fine arm running into a clean flat leg, his blood-like 

 quarter finishing off in rare muscular thighs and sound 

 hocks — his good middle and already well-developed crest — 

 this colt has only to further furnish to be something extra- 

 ordinary. He is a little Koman-nosed, and the head is not 

 quite a handsome one, but he betrays nothing of that vice for 

 which his sire is so notorious ; and we never went up to an 

 apparently better-tempered animal. Mr. Barthropp sold his 

 prize filly on the ground for 120i. to Sir Thomas Lenuard, 

 but the price of The Pilgrim was almost anything he liked to 

 ask. The first prize agricultural stallion was a bay Shire 

 horee, said to have been commended as a colt at Salisbury. 

 He is a coarse horse, with good action, very carefully got up, 

 and his legs " pulled" and fined to a nicety. Neither the 

 second or third were in anything like such trim. Mr. Clay- 

 den's stallion was second best at Warwick, and he has now 

 been four times a winner at the Society's shows, Jonas 

 Webb's third prize, another Suffolk, was but little liked, 

 but he has been doing a deal of work of all sorts, and 

 may ehow better in better form. Amongst the utterly 

 passed over were Hare's Goliath, and Barnes' Champion. 

 The veterinary inspector pronounced the latter to have a 

 five-year-old mouth, and disqualified a number of the 

 best-looking horses, on the ground of unsoundness. With 

 these went a long waj' the best-looking dray horse — almost 

 the only one of his class with the character of a dray horse. 

 The judges of course selected him, but the veterinarian con- 

 demned him as a whistler. The best agricultural horse we have 

 had for some years — the famous " Nonpareil — was once de- 

 clared by the inspector to be ineligible as " a whistler" ; but 

 one of the judges insisted upon his being re-examined, and 

 eventually he was passed. Still, nothing can be more supreme 

 in its way than the verdict of Professor Spooucr; aud bis very 

 manner to unhappy exhibitors is a thorough study of " hedged- 

 in" dignity. But he has a good deal to answer for, nevertheless. 

 Roaring, constitutional opthalmia, cataract, and chronic foot 

 lameness are amougst the causes of so many disqualifications : 

 and yet the horses were thought to be a sounder lot than those 

 sent to Warwick I The awards in reality rested more with 

 the Professor than the judges themselves, and he took im- 

 mense pains that nothing doubtful should bear their mark. 

 Old Mr. Tattersall was wont to say there was no such thing as 

 a sound horse, aud the Canterbury Show went far to con- 

 firm his opinion. 



If the agricultural horses were a ragged uneven lot, what 

 shall we say of the hacks and huutcrs ? Let us just save the 

 first thorough-bred stallion and Mr. Burch's Norfolk hack 

 mare that we noticed in Suffolk, and pass the rest as beneath 

 notice. The hunting mares were a common vulgar lot ; the 

 second prize for hunter staUions ought never to have been 

 awarded, and the rips and half-bred animals that made up the 

 entry might well have been disqualified ere they came to the 

 judges at all. Dagobert is a well-topped, short-backed, com- 

 pact horse, that really looks like getting huLters. He has 

 rather twisted fore-legs, but is far from a bad one, and came here 

 with the recommendation of having been the first prize horse 

 of the same order at the Yorkshire Show a year or two since 

 His nomination in the catalogue was not altogether correct; 

 for Dagobert was not bred by the Duke of Richmond, but 

 by Mr. Bennett, of Chieveley, near Newmarket. Mr. 

 Kersey Cooper sent his clever stallion pony ; and the first 

 prize galloway mare, by no means extraordinary, took the 

 stewards aud veterinary inspectors tomething like an hour and 

 a-half to determine whether she was over fourteen hands or 

 not ! Tiiere was Mr. Gibbs as director, and Mr, Hobbs and 

 Mr. Cavendish and Mr. Pain aud Mr. Pope to " see fair" as 

 stewards ; and Mr. Spooner aud Mr. Simonds to set the stan- 

 dard—which they eventually accomplished by the aid of a 

 hammer, a knife, a bit of string, and a little " spittle and per- 

 scveranoc," Judging by such an onerom duty as this, official 

 life in Cariterbury must have been hard indeed. However, 

 the galloway was at last declared "all right," and sold forth- 

 with for sixty pounds. 



