THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



153 



THE snow WEEK. 



This meeting at Salisbury is generally allowed to be 

 the best ever known. Its success, moreover, is of the 

 most legitimate character. It has been not merely fine 

 weather, crowds of company, and hospitable intents, 

 that have secured for the celebration so favourable a 

 verdict. Strictly regarded as an agricultural exhibi- 

 tion, depending entirely on its own merits as such, 

 there has been nothing so far to equal our gathering in 

 Wiltshire. For the last few years, indeed, this has been 

 the case with all the Society's shows. From Carlisle to 

 Chelmsford, and from Chelmsford to Salisbury, we still 

 culminate towards a perfection, that we may yet never 

 feel satisfied in having attained. The gradual improve- 

 ment, however, the steady progression of the Society 

 is unmistakable. Like the man in the fair, the last 

 article we have to oiTer is now always sure to be the 

 best. 



The superiority of the Salisbury Meeting is easily 

 defined. There were moi'e implements, and generally 

 better implements. There was more stock, and taking 

 the range of the whole classes, a far better show of 

 stock than has ever been brought together on any pre- 

 vious occasion. In cattle, whether you went for Sliort- 

 horn, Hereford, or Devon, great was the display of 

 each, and extraordinary the qualities of many of the 

 animals. The sheep show was, if possible, even stronger 

 still. In Downs, Leicesters, Country-downs, and Cots- 

 wolds were to be found all the most famous breeders, 

 and, as a rule, all with better sheep than ever. Then, 

 again, never was there such a lot of cart stallions, take 

 them either for numbers or, mostly, for excellence. The 

 thorough-bred and hunter classes are, too, manifestly 

 improving ; while the highest authorities deliberately 

 pronounced the pigs to be altogether unprecedented. 

 The very masses of mere sigh t-seersaresaid to have greatly 

 amended their manners. They are coming day by day 

 more and more to acknowledge the real utility of the 

 Society ; and few now walk through the yard with that 

 half smile, Iialf sneer, once so common a characteristic 

 of the visitor. Machinery is no longer regarded by 

 him as some inexplicable curiosity, or a good square 

 bull as an " immense brute." In short, we have not 

 only improved our stock, but improved our people. It 

 is not the farmer alone who learns a lesson from the 

 visit of the Iloyal Agricultural Society. The general 

 liublic benin at length to appreciate, if not even to de- 

 light, in a pursuit that at one time they were more than 

 indifferent to. Thej' have had their eyes opened not only 

 to what we are doing for ourselves, but for them also. 

 Need we say at the wave of whose wand, or by the in- 

 fluence of what kind genius this has been accom- 

 plished ? Or shall we wonder at the welcome every- 

 where given to a Society that has done what it was 

 intended to do — so nmch common good ? 



Still it is not merely for this general excellence that 

 Salisbury will stand celebrated. It could boast in 

 many ways of the best of its kind. Let us begin, for 

 instance, with what may fairly be considered the chief 

 attraction of the cattle classes — that is, with the show 

 of Shorthorns. The first, then, of these we come to 

 on the prize list, Mr. Sterling's " John O'G.'oat," we 

 shall be bold enough to rank as one of the very best bulls 

 of his breed everexhibited. He is altogether a far grander 

 animal than the " Master Butterfly" of last season, of 

 quite as fine a quality, and yet more symmetrical pro- 

 portions. As the Yorkshireman said of the horse he 

 was trying to cheapen, " Dang him ! I can't see a 

 fault about him." So it is, or at least very much so, 



with John O'Groat. He has gone on improving since 

 he was first shown by his breeder— the well-known Mr. 

 Fawkes, of Farnley— at the Carlisle Meeting of two 

 years since. In fact, John O'Groat is a better animal 

 than he at first promised to be— a recommendation 

 which is not too common with high bred, over-led 

 cattle of any kind. Tlie lesults of the last two or three 

 seasons have now tended to rank Mr. Fawkes even 

 higher than ever as a breeder of shorthorns. He him- 

 self again takes the prize for young bulls, with one that 

 shiiws i! anything jet more blood than his elder bro- 

 ther ; while Mr. Marjoribanks owns the best bull calf 

 in ''Great Mogul." It maybe remembered, that 

 sporting auctioneer, Mr. Wetherell, backed Mogul to 

 do all this when he was put up at the Bushey sale a 

 few weeks since. 



As a class, however, as containing the greatest num- 

 ber of good animals, there has been Uijthing like that of 

 the Shorthorn Cows. Colonel Towneley, it will be seen, 

 took the first and second prizes; Mr. Booth having two 

 more highly commended, and Mr. Stratton another 

 pair equally distinguished. Three such couples were 

 certainly never before so associated together in one 

 entry. They have of course nearly all some previous 

 repute in our different show-yards ; and as ranking 

 worthily with them we may further instance the single 

 entries of Mr. Wetherell, Mr. Langstone, and Mr. 

 Douglas; the two first of these being also highly com- 

 mended. The next class, of Heifers in Milk, is re- 

 markable for containing what is commonly supposed 

 to be the prettiest cow ever seen — Mr. Booth's '' Queen 

 of the May." Still she stood only second here, in the 

 opinion of the judges, to Mr. Douglas's heifer, out of 

 his famous Rose of Summer ; an own brother to which, 

 in the two-year-old bull class, showed by no means a 

 strong family likeness to his sister, and so passed un- 

 honoured accordingly. There was a good deal of dis- 

 cussion as to the award between this Rose of Athel- 

 stane and the Queen of the May, and we fancied the 

 latter did not look quite so fresh as we have seen her. 



We do not know whether in these Cow and Heil'er 

 Classes the judges took the milking qatilities at all into 

 consideration Few speeches of late, however, have 

 had more eftect than that short pithy sentence of the 

 American, Mr. French, at the Ipsv.ich Meeting : — '■ If 

 they don't give plenty of milk, I don't care how short 

 their horns are." Any how, it is very certain one ex- 

 hibitor of shorthorns at Salisbury brought a spare cow 

 with him, to feed his stock from ; just as the trainer 

 took a barrel of water to Doncaster, so as not to throw 

 a chance away for tho St. Leger. We suppose, though, 

 the milking cow would not have done to put by the 

 side of some of the better cared for from the same herd. 

 This is the gre it mistake our breeders have for some 

 time been rimning into, and it is one the Society should 

 take especial pains to correct. 



As far as we may take the test of these agricultural 

 exhibitions, the tas"te for Herefords is rapidly reviving. 

 During the last tvv-o or three years the entries of this 

 breed have in every way improved. In none of the 

 classes has it been more remarkable than where this 

 must be most wanted— in the female animals. In a 

 generally very excellent show of the sort they had again 

 the call at Salisbury. Lord Berwick's, Mrs. Palmer's, 

 Lord Radnor's, and Mr. Hill's cows are all nearly per- 

 fect specimens of their kind. An upstanding Hercibrd 

 ox may at times be rather an uuwieldly-looking beast ; 

 but a well-formed, well-marked Hereford cow is quite 

 a picture— take almost any of the prize animals here 

 as the example. 



And so, many will say, is the Devon — the pure, 

 thorough-bred, home-reared Devon that is, which car- 

 ried all before it at Salisbury. They came out in greater 



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