228' IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



many as last year, but it approximates that increase. It manifestly was 

 an eye-opener. Neither 80-cent corn nor high-priced nurse cows entered 

 into the calculations of the enterprising exhibitors who threw their entries 

 into this arena. Challenging by numbers, the assault on the mental 

 vision was reinforced by quality. Hereafter comparisons for state fair ex- 

 hibits of the breed will take Des Moines in 1914 as their standard. Old- 

 time fair goers may have seen toppers of more sensational character, 

 aged animals of greater fame, but they would stand astonished in the 

 presence of the long lines of prime youngsters stretched out in the arena. 

 The futurity prizes guaranteed by the American Shorthorn Breeders' 

 Association, to be shown at Kansas City and Chicago, are credited with 

 the selection and fitting of this sensational lot of calves. The exhibit 

 passes into the most creditable history of the breed, a tribute to the 

 genius of breeders and the skill of conditioners. And it was fitting that 

 such an exhibit should face as Judge, Leslie Smith, St. Cloud, Minn., who 

 knows quite as well as any man what constitutes a show yard Shorthorn, 

 as he has bred many and won with them. 



THE BULL CLASSES. 



The breed jumped its show with a row on between a couple of aged 

 bulls. It was a snappy start, ten in line and some capable bulls among 

 them. Whitehall Rosedale, son of Avondale, has made improvement so 

 great as to occasion comment and he carried more scale than the blocky, 

 beefy Villager Denmark, and is of really acceptable stamp, presence and 

 smoothness. The senior yearlings presented the grand champion in 

 Cumberland's Type. Of admitted greatness, done to the minute and of 

 astonishing breadth, levelness and thickness, he was obliged to shake off 

 the grip that Fair Acres Gloster had on top place. It was much of a bull 

 show all the way through, and no place for boys in the judge's box. 

 Cumberland's Type made a highly satisfactory champion, and the char- 

 acter of the opposition he overcame adds to his laurels. Royal Choice, a 

 straight-fashioned roan of ample frame, topped the fourteen junior 

 yearlings, with Village Victor, or more compressed pattern, nagging him 

 to the last. Is it really proper to call a sift of fourteen senior bull calves 

 a "short leet?" Perhaps it is when they are picked from no less than 

 thirty-three entries. And it is credit enough to stand among these elect, 

 even if the ribbons failed when half were decorated, as a search warrant 

 could not have located a mean calf in the entire company. Uppermill 

 Lord ruled them. This son of Sultan's Last bears an ambitious name, 

 and has begun to justify it. Choice Cumberland asks little odds of any 

 calf, so acceptably is he fashioned and finished, and he looked well next 

 to top. Bobby Burns exemplified the evenness with which these ripened 

 calves carry their thickness. Comment in fairness should run farther 

 down this line of winners. The nineteen juniors scarcely preserved to 

 the end the high level of excellence that characterized the preceding class, 

 but the tops invited comparison with any company. Among the sensations 

 of the exhibit none ranked higher than the roan Sultan's Coronet, one 

 of the wonders of precocity in rotundity, smoothness and ripeness. The 

 pair from Anoka, Augusta Sultan, the roan, and Crystal Stamp, the white, 

 left no room between them after the Lord had been recognized. One can 



