32 WORKING OXEN. 



ambition to enter the lists where honor always, and premiams often-, inaj 

 be won. But certainly no one who reads this report will fail to realize 

 that all things are excellen^t or unworthy as they stand in a cctnparative 

 scale with the best. It is easy to see, therefore, that below a certairi- 

 standard, dishonor, and not honor, results from competition with the 

 highest attainments in teamstership. We are aware the question may 

 be asked how the highest result of individual human ef&rt, (thougb 

 tbat result should bo comparatively inferior,) can possibly incur dis- 

 k)nor. We answer that tlie Committee assume that competitors under- 

 stand our recognized standard of merit, and that we are called upon to 

 witness and to decide the comparative merits of actual aUainments — 

 not to witness or decide processes of training. Kn absence of the 

 power to comprehend whsit we have indicated, would we should think, 

 amount to a disqualification to compete — otherwise want of knowledge, as- 

 above, would amount to dishonor. '' Excelsior " should be our motto ; 

 and the Society enjoins it u])0ii Committees not to consider themselves 

 bound by any by-law to award a p/reniium i» any ease where, in their 

 opinion, it is not deserved. Not to be scrupulous and conservative oi> 

 this point would be to lower the existing standard, whieh the interests- 

 of the Society, and of agricultural science at large make it our duty to 

 raise, so much as may lie in our power. 



If any reader fails to see the need and pertinency of tl>e foregoing 

 strictures, as applied to eomjXititions for premiums on trained oxon, we 

 can only pronounce our belief that his observations have been too shal- 

 low or too narrow. In justice, however, to a large and flourishing 

 Society, (of which this is, we believe^ one of the oldest children,) we 

 should say that there were forty yoke of cattle entered as trained, most 

 of which did their work vroll, approxi^^ating to the prennuin standard. 

 But in general the compiititions in this class form an exception to ani- 

 mals or articles in other classes. 



Pardon a few illustrations. What owner of a horse incapable of 

 ferotting a mile in less than five minutes wwild think of putting him io 

 eompetition, for a purse, with horses that could make a n>ile in 2.22 or 

 2..30 'I Generally a man competing for ;^ pn-emium on horses that have 

 never trotted faster then 2.40, n^akes sure tlxit his a'n-iii>;il can make aj 

 mile in three minutes, before he presun}es to njake an entry. The 

 judges v/'ouU consider it an imposition to be obli2;ed to vntnc-is speci- 

 mens of the easy jogging common to farm and family horses. 



Doubtless the proprietor of the Perry mower hnewr that be had a 

 machine as effi-cient and vfell fra-nished as the celebrated Wood, and 

 hazarded nothinix in competing for the prize and championship (»f the 

 world y at the great Exposition. It is understood that the judges 

 es'ceemed the cf>lebrated Steinway Piano very nearly er|ual in power 

 and purity of tone, and artistic finish, to the world renowned '• Chick- 

 ering,"and so of four other candidates for the World's honors. But it may 

 bo retorted that shiuld the Society fi'P.d itself inconvenienced by inferior 



