No. 4. 



Agricultural Shows. 



107 



For the Farmers' Cabinet. 



Proper Articles for Exhibition at Agri- 

 cultural Shows. 



Mr. Editor, — The remarks by Joseph 

 Stille, in the last No. of the Cabinet, on the 

 late Exhibition of the Philadelphia Agricul- 

 tural Society, contain matter for serious re- 

 flection. Although not present on that occa- 

 sion, I have seen the same propensity for 

 large cattle exercise an undue influence on 

 the minds of many elsewhere, and in no 

 place, perhaps, are persons wholly free from 

 that partiality. The most likely thingr to 

 convince of the error that almost all have 

 imbibed is, to impress upon them the axiom 

 in stock-breeding, to begin with dam the 

 best; relying more upon the female than the 

 male for the production of large cattle of 

 good proportions. It is easy to obtain large 

 calves from overgrown bulls, but unless the 

 cows be large also, the offspring is scarcely 

 ever well-formed ; often indeed are they 

 found of a cross-bred, coarse, lanky charac- 

 ter, as disgraceful to the breeder as to the 

 sire. And these remarks were exemplified 

 at the late Exhibition at Syracuse, where 

 some of the smallest and neatest of the tho- 

 rough-bred Devon bulls were best known and 

 most highly prized, as stock-getters of the 

 greatest value ; and I must say, I consider the 

 breeders of short-horns peculiarly blamcable 

 in this respect — pushing on their animals by 

 means of the highest keep to mammoth size 

 — all wrong, depend upon it. 



I have been much pleased with some very 

 judicious remarks contained in a late number 

 of the New England Farmer, on this subject, 

 and believing that a large proportion of your 

 readers would coincide with the writer in the 

 view which he has taken, if they had tiie op- 

 portunity to become acquainted with them, I 

 have copied them for publication, should you 

 approve. The editor says — 



"Is there not reason for supposing that 

 people are accustomed to exhibit at these 

 fairs the largest squash, pumpkin, or ruta 

 baga — the largest calf — the largest steers, 

 and every thing the largest of its kind] Is 

 size the principal thing regarded? And do 

 the members of committees make size the 

 criterion of merit"? Such questions should 

 find no place in our columns if we did not 

 suppose they must, in too many instances, be 

 answered in the affirmative. Now, what we 

 wish to see is the best, not the largest mere- 

 ly. And it often happens — it ordinarily hap- 

 pens — that the very large calf is a coarse- 

 made animal, unfit for a breeder. There are 

 exceptions to this remark, and yet it is true 

 as a general statement; many members of 

 committees regard form and fineness of make 

 in fixing upon their awards, still we never 



attended a show where we could feel satisfied 

 that size was not too much regarded. If in 

 our judgment we are correct, the influence 

 of cattle shows tends, in some degree at least, 

 to the introduction of a large and raw-boned 

 breed of cattle, which no well-wisher to the 

 farming interest would ever desire to encour- 

 age. Other things being equal, we should 

 prefer, as a matter of profit, to be the owner 

 of a cow or bull that was but little above the 

 medium size, rather than of one extraordina- 

 rily large. Fineness of bone, symmetry of 

 form, apparent thrift and hardiness of consti- 

 tution — these are the important points. And 

 in relation to young animals, intended to be 

 kept as breeders, we should regard it as 

 highly important to know something of the 

 pedigree, so that we might guess whether 

 the good points were merely accidental, or 

 whether they were fixed in the blood, and 

 would be likely to reappear in the offspring. 

 A very finely formed bull, which happens to 

 come from coarse parents, will, in but very 

 few instances, produce his like; and for this 

 reason we should make the parentage a mat- 

 ter of importance ; not that we should be 

 anxious to encourage in a region of short 

 pasturage, the general introduction of "Herd 

 Book" animals — but we should like to know 

 that the parents for two or three generations 

 back had been well-formed and profitable in 

 our climate, and upon such feed as is usual 

 here. 



" When we come to fruits and vegetables, 

 the matter is still worse. If a squash, from 

 some mysterious and unconjectured cause, 

 happens to become a mammoth, or to be curi- 

 ously distorted in form, that is the one that 

 must be carried to the show, while the cart- 

 loads that are finely-formed, of good quality, 

 and the causes of whose excellence can be 

 explained and reapplied by the producer and 

 others — these are left at home. So it is, to 

 some extent, in relation to many other vege- 

 tables and to fruits. 



" Now what we wish to see is, a fair spe- 

 cimen of a good crop, and accompanying that, 

 we desire a statement of the mode of culture, 

 so that we may obtain instruction that will 

 be of service to us in our own agricultural 

 and horticultural operations in future years. 

 The mammoths, the dwarfs, the deformed, 

 which nature has made in sport, and which 

 cannot be produced again by any particular 

 processes of cultivation — these things are 

 mere curiosities, and convey no useful infor- 

 mation. The fairest, finest and best specimens 

 (not in all cases the largest) are the proper 

 ones to be exhibited on these occasions." 

 Nov. 10, 1841. 2- 



Suffering innocence is a spectacle which 

 the heart cannot bear. 



