THE CREST OP ANOTHER WAVE 821 



Excess Fat vs. Real Bloom.— "The Breeders' Ga- 

 zette" special for "herd shown in best bloom" was 

 sent by the Shorthorn judges who decided the con- 

 test to Mr. Nave's heavily conditioned cattle with 

 Dale at their head — an award which was commented 

 upon at the time by the author of this volume in the 

 following language : 



"The prize offered by the publishers of 'The Ga- 

 zette' for herds shown in the best bloom was award- 

 ed by agreement of Messrs. Leonard and Dustin to 

 the lots shown by Messrs. Nave, Sotham and Clark 

 in the order named. In view of the fact that 'The 

 Gazette' has persistently deprecated the awarding 

 of prizes in breeding rings to cattle burdened with 

 excessive fat, and as this prize was offered largely 

 with a view towards encouraging those who do not 

 approve of extreme obesity in these contests, it had 

 been generally believed by those who clearly under- 

 stood our purpose that the herd headed by Dale 

 would be regarded as rather too rich to receive this 

 recognition. The meat of our definition of show- 

 yard bloom was to be found in the clause which stip- 

 ulated that there must be 'ample evidence of the 

 fact that the bringing out of the beast in suitable 

 showyard form has probably not threatened its 

 physical well being.' Without questioning the right 

 of Mr. Nave's thoroughly trained cattle to win in the 

 regular competitions under existing standards of 

 showyard judging, we do not believe that any expe- 

 rienced breeder will contend that breeding cattle 

 can be brought to such ripeness for the block with- 

 out threatening seriously their future usefulness. 



"We have scarcely read the history of cattle- 

 breeding correctly, however, if we accept a herd of 

 cattle in that condition as presenting what a breeder 



