THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



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markably good animal, of immense substance, and carrying a 

 great amount of flesh of good quality. Col, Towneley received 

 the second prize with a fine animal, showing a good deal of the 

 Shorthorn character. She is from a cow of Mr. Booth's, named 

 •' Madeline," but was in the present instance over matched. 



The animals shown in Class 5 for the best pure-bred or 

 cross-bred steers not being Shorthorns, were remarkably good. 

 The winner, which attracted considerable attention, appears 

 to be a cross between a Scotch cow by a Shorthorn bull. His 

 substance was extraordinary, his quality of flesh excellent, and 

 he might fairly he considered the third-best animal in the yard- 

 In Class 6, for the best pure-bred or cross-bred heifers or 

 cows not being Shorthorns, the first prize was awarded to 

 Mr. James Stewart, New Market, Aberdeen, for a cross be- 

 tween a Shorthorned bull and an Aberdeen cow, aged 3 

 years and 8 months. Sir Walter Calverley Trevelyan, Bart., 

 received the second prize in this class for a heifer with good 

 fore-quarters, but weak in the back and not well finished. 

 The prize in the seventh class, for the best heifer or cow of 



any polled breed was carried off by Mr. Thomas Lund, of 

 Monk Bar, York, with a remarkably fine animal only 2 years 

 and 7 months old. She wants size, but is of good quality, 

 and will make excellent beef. If she had not had wonderfully 

 fine points about her she would have had little chance with 

 her competitors, some of which were more than twice her age. 

 A Scotch polled heifer exhibited by Sir W. C. Trevelyan, 

 Bart., was a good thick animal, but so wild that no one durst 

 approach her. There were only two competitors in Class 8.» 

 The animal which carried of! the prize, exhibited by Mr. 

 Stewart, of Aberdeen, is a beast of which a good deal more 

 mi2;ht be made. Classes 9, 10, 11, were represented by fair 

 good animals. 



Although there were 25 pens of sheep, they were not a 

 first-rate exhibition. There was an exceedingly good show of 

 pigs, numbering no less than 33 pens. 



The dinner of the society was held in the New Town-hall, 

 Lord A. V. Tempest, M.P. in the chair. 

 — Abridged from the Durham Cottnty Advertiser. 



THE RECENT PROCEEDINGS OF THE SMITHFIELD CLUB. 



Like a coursing party, " mad for a minute and dull 

 for an hour," the Smithfield Club is vei"y busy for a 

 week, and very quiet all the rest of the year. The 

 pi'oceedings of this last anniversary have been more 

 than usually interesting; and it may so be not impolitic 

 again to refer to them, while we have still the oppor- 

 tunity, and they are yet comparatively fresh in the 

 recollection of the public. We would dwell here not 

 so much on the merits of the Show itself, as the several 

 propositions for its future management and ad- 

 vancement. The very number of motions on the 

 agenda list spoke well for the vitality of the 

 Society. What the Smithfield Club has especially 

 to guard against is the mere routine of self-satisfied 

 success. It must strive even to do more than it 

 has done, and not continually fall back upon precedent 

 for everything it attempts or accomplishes. In a word, 

 it requires more new matter and new blood ; and one 

 will always conduce to the other. The more practical 

 men that are invited to take an active part in its ad- 

 ministration, the more likely is its improvement, even 

 in the numerical strength of its members. It has been 

 the fashion of ringing the changes on Brown, Jones, 

 and Robinson — Robinson, Brown, and Jones — that has 

 caused the Club to be considered rather as a close 

 borough, and brought the majority of agriculturists, 

 like all the rest of the world, just to pay its shilling and 

 see the Show, and to think nothing more about it. 



It was, then, with much satisfaction that we saw a 

 notice from one of the stewards of the yard for in- 

 creasing the number of gentlemen in authority. Mr. San- 

 day, himself a most active officer and eminent breeder, 

 proposed — " That, in consequence of the great addi- 

 tional labour incidental to the increase of the Show, it 

 is necessary that three more judges be appointed" — 

 and he carried his motion. Even in the list for this 

 year there were one or two new names whose addresses 

 were by no means so readily at our fingers' ends. We 



would counsel the Club to follow this up, and, in the 

 nine now required, to endeavour as much as possible to 

 find a few fresh faces. It would be our last object to 

 offer any disparagement to those who have officiated 

 so often and so well ; but it is in' every way advisable 

 to have more tried men to fall back upon. 

 Moreover, a new judge may work on to a 

 new steward, or vice versa ; and certainly, the greatest 

 mistake or most unpopular proceeding, of late, has 

 been to ask members who have already had three 

 years of duty to take upon them another such a round. 

 We somewhat question, too, whether we have not got 

 beyond the times when a steward should have the ap- 

 pointment of his successor. Such a plan might have 

 been all very well when the direction of the Club was 

 necessarily limited, and agriculturists, as a rule, loath to 

 aid even their own interests in public. At present, 

 however, the reverse is the case ; and we would put it 

 as a grand principle of action, that the more poweryou 

 give to the general body of your members, the more 

 members will you be likely to have. The weak place 

 of the Smithfield Club is that it has so few. 



Another point touched on at the recent meetings of 

 the Club would not seem so easy of improvement or 

 solution. In the game of definitions we have always 

 had two standing difficulties — What is a gentleman ? 

 and what is a thorough-bred horse ? Mr. Beazley adds 

 a third, and asks the Club to say what is a puie-bred 

 animal? The latter has "given it up," perhaps a 

 little too hastily. A committee might surely furnish 

 us with some leading principles or rules to act upon — 

 long wanted for the guidance of judges and similar so- 

 cieties, and that could not come so appropriately from 

 a.iy other body. Indeed, if such information be ever 

 supplied us from elsewhere, it will bo simply because 

 the great national Club has omitted to do so. The 

 motion, too, was the almost inevitable sequence of what 

 occui'red at the Show of last year. Whether Mr. 

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