68 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



literal sense of the word, as compared with the sheep. 

 Observe those masses of fat in Class 41, No. 327, 11 

 months 21 days old. They almost appear to have nei- 

 ther eyes nor nose, both being hidden by fat. "What 

 do they weigh, think you ?'' said I to a butcher. 

 " Well, I think they weigh up'ards of 40 stun." Forty 

 stone for a pig under a twelvemonth old ! The pigs 

 royal did not shine quite so much as usual, though his 

 Royal Highness the Prince Consort took the first prize 

 in Class 42. Those of Mr. G. Morland, which took the 

 first prizes of Class 39 and 40 (Nos. 314 and 322), were 

 very superior stock ; but, generally speaking, if ten- 

 dency to fattening and precocity are recommendations, 

 most of the pens exhibited were highly creditable to the 

 graziers. 



On the whole, I have been quite as much gratified as 

 usual ; not the least source of which is the continued, if 

 not increased, interest displayed by the public at large 

 in this most useful Institution, which is now become a 

 national feature, although not under the surveillance of 

 the Government, nor subject to the officious annoyance 

 of police regulations, like those of the French. The 

 spontaneous offspring of the farmers themselves, and 

 supported by them without any extraneous aid from the 

 public purse, the Smithfield Club and their Cattle 

 Show are the result and the evidence of that free- 

 dom which is the foundation and the support of all 

 national prosperity. I must leave my remarks on the 

 machinery department for another week. 



An old Norfolk Farmer. 



THE CATTLE SHOW. 



Mere idlers are not the anxious, cautious heads engaged all 

 the week in manipulating and admiring the scarifiers and reaping- 

 marhioes and steam-ploughs in Baker-street. If farming is 

 all that its extant instruments and implements betoken, it is 

 among the most dfficult of economical pursuits. The British 

 farmer must be an accouutant holding his own against Messrs. 

 Quilter and Ball ; for he must be able to get the exact cost of 

 every bushel of corn raised on his fields, and of every beast 

 and sheep consigned to the butcher. He must know what he 

 wins and loses by every acre, and he must be possessed of the 

 natural history of every bushel of manure throughout its 

 career of raw material, grass, beef, or flour. In other words, 

 the farmer must be a good arithmetician, something of a chem- 

 ist, not unacquainted with animal and vegetable physiology, a 

 practical mechanician, skilled in at least the theory of several 

 branches of natural philosophy, possessed of that admin- 

 istrative faculty which can rule and attract subordi- 

 nates, with moral qualifications which, to say the least 

 of them, must embrace sobriety, punctuality, quickness, tact, 

 and what is generally known by business habits. If the 

 farmer is not this, he is nought ; and the fact that the trade 

 has compelled him to be this is not the least of its blessings. 



There is probably no class which the last quarter of a century 

 has so much elevated and refined as that of the British farmer. 

 And it would be a great mistake to suppose that all that the 

 agricultural and bucolic multitude hurry to Baker-street for is 

 to prod into the fat sides of the Hereford os or Devon heifer, 

 or^to gloat over the super-porcine developments of the Prince 

 Consort's prize pen. Not the least important part of a first- 

 class sgricultural show is the department of roots, seeds, 

 grasses, and instruments. Probably there is an element of 

 quackery in many of the specimens exhibited. The preterna- 

 tural mangels and kohl-rabis, and the preposterous cabbages and 

 parsnips.'cannot have attained their surpassing size at remunera- 

 tive culture — neither cau the cattle. But it is with these things 

 as with all heroes. They present types, standards, ideals, to 

 which perfection tends; but only in this sense are they a 

 guide to the ordinary laws of production. It is not meant or 

 suggested that all oxen should, even in the most optimized con- 

 dition of bovine existence, attain the majesty of Mr. Shirley's 

 or Mr. Nailer's Hereford, or the virgin graces of that milk- 

 white lo. Colonel Towneley's wonderful heifer. It is not that 

 the show aims at compelling all porkers to equal the lazy ma- 

 jesty of the pigs who, in stately and Oriental nirwana — in the 

 serene luxury of self-contemplation and ecstacy of absorption 

 from the eternal world — pillow their chins on those happy 

 cylindrical blocks which the thoughtful care of the guardians 

 of their years has provided for their amiable depth of dewlap — 

 if a pig may be said to have dewlap. This is not what stall- 

 feeding leads to. The show in Baker-street is rather designed 

 to present to the practical farmer a proof of the capacity of the 

 material with which he has to deal. 



And this value of the exhibition is great. It is impossible 

 for even the most unimpressible of farmers not to carry away 

 something. Those mild and stately Herefords, and those 

 crisp and elastic fleeces — already almost woven fabrics, so clean 

 in fibre and so close in texture — of the short-woolled sheep, 

 must haunt the sloven, not only in visions of the night, but in 

 his daily tramp. Nor does the exhibition only teach the 

 farmer how mutton and beef and pork can be produced in 

 the shortest time, even if at an advanced expeuseof material; 

 but it teaches this : Science, it may be, exhibits itself at 

 present but in its first contact with agriculture, and cer- 

 tainly not in its most attractive guise. It seems almost 

 as if agricultural machines were more complex than any 

 other, more aimed with threatening spikes and jagged 

 teeth, more involved and more horrisonous than those of 

 Staleybridge and Manchester. Is it not in the infancy of 

 science that its machinery is so complex ? We tiust so, and 

 that farming machines will become simpler, and their principle 

 more intelligible. The farmer must be coerced into abandon- 

 ing his Virgilian plough and the Hesiodic waggon, which is 

 still too common ; but the great desideratum of farming ma- 

 chines is simplicity of construction. And here we notice some 

 waggons really elegant in form and construction, and of the 

 simple, natural oak, varnished, and undisguised with paint. 

 If these carts and wains are as substantial as they are elegant, 

 high art has actually penetrated into the homestead. All this 

 is a great benefit to the community. Scientific chemistry, the 

 literature of agriculture, steam cultivation, and beauty of form 

 developing itself in took and implements, must elevate, and 

 that very rapidly, the character of the cultivator. — The Satur- 

 day Review. 



THE METROPOLITAN GREAT CHRISTMAS CATTLE MARKET. 



Monday, Dec. 12. 



The steady upward movement in the value of live 

 stock during the present year, in the face of full average 

 supplies, and the enormous consumption going on in 

 nearly all parts of England, have produced much inte- 

 rest as regards the result of the great Christmas market, 

 appointed to be held to-day. The grazing community 

 have regarded with some anxiety the value and import- 

 ance of extensive crossing in a pecuniary point of view, 

 and consumers have shown themselves fully alive to 

 the producing powers of the country ; in Qther wor(ls, 



they have been desirous of ascertaining how far exten- 

 sive crossing has increased the quantity of food, when 

 compared with what is termed the " pure" system. 

 That the system has been Iiighly successful in each 

 point of view is evident from the general weight and 

 condition of the bullock show here this morning. It 

 is quite true that the past has been a favourable season 

 for rearing and feeding stock, the weather having been 

 fine, and the supplies of natural and artificial food very 

 large ; stijl it is gratifying to observe that the origina 



