NEAT STOCK. 25T 



meal or roots ; has always been wintered upon straw, husks, 

 poor and good hay. 



Princeton. 



From the Report of the Committee on Tivo and Three Years 



Old Steers. 

 Steers. — In the steers was evinced the care that had been 

 taken to blend the different breeds of Devon and Durham with 

 the native, in order to produce the best race of grades to be 

 attained ; and in awarding the premiums, reference "was had 

 to the promise of future usefulness, rather than to future size 

 or beauty. No department of our show is of more importance 

 than this, for unless we have good steers we can have no good 

 oxen. Your committee had still another office to fulfil, viz. : 

 to judge of trained steers. There was no competition in this 

 department, as there was but one pair of one-year-olds entered. 

 But they were truly worthy of much commendation for the 

 perfection to which they had been brought, being just as man- 

 ageable out of the yoke as in it, and each as much at home on 

 one side as the other, in fact performing any thing required of 

 them. The steers entered were owned by William W. Benson, 

 of Princeton, a minor, to whom we award tlie premium of f 3 ; 

 and in consideration of the peculiar, and in these days, very 

 singular circumstances in which he presents himself to our 

 notice, we recommend a gratuity of $5, two in money and 

 three in books, to be selected and presented by the president 

 and secretary of our society, in order to encourage him in the 

 laudable and very useful pursuit to which he devotes himself 

 and his hard earnings. Training steers may seem a very simple 

 and common place affair, but there is no more important, vise- 

 ful, or, indeed, more profitable department in raising stock. 

 "Well broken oxen are vastly more valuable than those which 

 arc merely made to go from fear of the lash, as is too often the 

 case, aside from preventing the vexation, ill feeling, much 

 pounding and some swearing that is caused thereby. The idea 

 that cattle are susceptible of training, that they are sensible of 

 kind treatment, and that they have good qualities and dispo- 

 sitions that may be developed instead of bad ones, is becoming 

 more and more apparent, as men take more pride in their good 



