FEEDING. 177 



competition, the assembling together of breeders from all counties 

 and even from abroad, the comparison of the different animals 

 brought together, and the conclusions drawn in many minds, tend 

 materially to the elucidation and advancement of the science of breed- 

 ing. Persons resident in remote localities are apt to set up for them- 

 selves some particular standard of excellence, and make it the whole 

 aim of their endeavors to obtain and develop certain points in an 

 animal, and having done this they rest satisfied ; but when the 

 annual cattle show places before them other and evidently superior 

 animals, they perceive how much too limited, and often how erro- 

 neous, have been their views, and set to work afresh to improve upon 

 the knowledge thus acquired. 



But there is no good without its attendant evil. It was, doubtless, 

 originally intended by those who established the distribution of 

 prizes for certain kinds of stock, that the prize animal should be the 

 most excellent as to its points, the most useful to the farmer, breed- 

 er, and butcher, and altogether the most profitable ; but not that it 

 should be the fattest ! It is reported that, on Hannah More being 

 asked what was the use of cattle-shows, she replied, " To induce peo- 

 ple to make beef and mutton so fat that nobody can eat it." This 

 certainly is the abuse of them, and in no class of animals is it carried 

 to such an extent as in swine. The greedy propensities of the poor 

 animal are worked upon ; he is shut up, often in darkness, and fed 

 and suffered to gorge himself until he can scarcely move or breathe, 

 and often dies of suffocation, or is obliged to be killed, from the sim- 

 ple exertion of being brought to the show in the most easy and care- 

 ful manner. A premium would be far better bestowed upon the 

 most useful and profitable animal, the one most likely to make good 

 bacon or pork, than on these huge masses of obesity, whose super- 

 abundance of fat is fit for little else but the melting-pot. As much 

 money is often wasted on one of these monsters as would purchase 

 food for half a dozen really profitable animals. And to what pur- 

 pose 1 Simply to test the elastic power of a pig's skin ? " No," 

 reply the advocates of this species of monomania, " but to discover 

 which breeds can be fattened to the greatest size in the shortest time^ 

 and on the smallest amount of food." And to this plea we can only 

 reply, that while we admit the value of such knowledge, we think it 

 might be attained without the sacrifice of a fine animal, at much less 

 expense, and far more satisfactorily. Let the animals be fat, but do 

 not let them be a mere bladder of lard, " of shape undefined," every 

 point lost and buried. It is fine and profitable breeds we require, 

 not monstrosities. The grand aim of agricultural societies is to pro- 

 mote the improvement, of the breeds, and consequently the profit of 

 the breeder, and general advantage. We trust that this will shortly 

 be fully understood and carried out, and the cattle-shows become, as 

 it were, model-rooms, instead of mere exhibitions of over-fed, pant- 



