TO THE EXHIBITOR AND FAIR MANAGER 71 



emergencies. Many is the time that I have asked the exhibitor, 

 while acting as judge, the age of his animal; he generally has an 

 answer ready, and when asked if he has his registry papers with 

 him, he replies that he has them at home, but forgot to bring 

 them, and after passing around the ring once or twice, I again 

 ask the gentleman, "What did you tell me the age of this animal 

 is?" and he would give an age entirely different. I have done 

 this on purpose to find out if the man was telling the truth. You 

 know it has been said that it takes an awfully smart man to be a 

 liar. 



Again, where registry papers are not absolutely insisted upon, 

 many exhibitors are inclined, when asked the age of under-a-year 

 animals, to give the date of Sept. 1 to 3, as their date of birth, 

 and those in the under-six-months class from March 1 to 3. This 

 of course, has to be taken by the judge as a fact, however much he 

 may doubt or suspect. 



This matter of showing pigs of uncertain ages is somewhat in 

 disrepute. It simply puts the man doing business right up against 

 an almost impossible chance of winning, where older pigs than 

 should be admitted to the class are being shown. I know of no 

 way to stop this except by the rigid enforcement of showing 

 certificates of registry. 



One may say that the same rascality might be covered up 

 by the owner when sending his pedigree in for registration giving 

 a wrong birth date, showing the animal younger than it really 

 was. When it comes to this proposition the fellow will have to be 

 very smart or he will be tripped up sometime by having regis- 

 tered two litters from the same sow that were born too nearly at 

 the same time. 



