exhibited at the Society s Meeting, 1882. 
5G1 
above twelve months old on the day of showing," and " calved 
in 1882, but less than twelve months old," would form a more 
appropriate division next year ; even if the funds of the Society 
should allow only one prize to be given to each section. It is 
impossible — and therefore a task not fair to impose on any 
Judge — to balance between the promise of a calf still largely 
dependent for merit on the milking of its nurse, and the per- 
formance of a yearling which is able to take up, and to prove 
its power of assimilating, the ordinary food upon which cattle 
are fed and fattened, whilst "farrowed in 1883" will give too 
wide a margin for that infirmity of recollection which seems 
peculiar to pig breeders. No section of the Society's clients 
make such demands upon the public to take abnormal growth 
upon trust. " Best litters still sucking upon the dam," would 
form a safer limit than any mere statement of " farrowed in 
1883." The mother sow would have some remarks to make 
upon the subject of abnormally advanced dentition, which would 
be to the full as pertinent as any conclusions which are now 
courageously arrived at by the Society's Veterinary Inspectors. 
And it certainly does seem a little inconsistent, when the 
Society has issued a strict rule against the employment of lamp- 
black and white paint in giving a finishing touch to pigs, to 
find the owners of sheep permitted to be so dependent upon red 
ochre and sulphur for giving the specimens of their flocks " the 
last dip " before allowing the public to see them. The Society's 
object is to show people what is the best stamp of animal to 
breed from ; proceeding upon the recognised principle that 
" like begets like." But, in the matter of sheep-breeding, it 
seems accepted that animals are to be shown such as cannot 
possibly reproduce anything like themselves. Will the tup, with 
the ruddled, felted fleece, beget lambs one whit nearer the type 
which he wears at the Show, than will the rough-looking, because 
naturally shown, sire ? or will the ewes, loaded with as much 
colouring-matter as their wool will hold, breed lambs at all 
resembling them in the gorgeous hues Avhich they display ? 
These exhibitions exist for those who have yet to learn, as well 
as for those who have burnt their fingers by experience. The 
present fashions of exhibiting sheep are perilously akin to that 
of oversizing calico with fuller' s-earth, which has undermined 
more than one branch of our foreign trade ; and they have 
close connection with the tricks of the horse-coper. No doubt 
there are markets in which sheep appear equally bedaubed ; 
just as there are markets in which cows stand with the ring 
scraped from their horns, and horses gingered into a spurious 
display of spirit. Yet all such practices are, alike, mere dealers' 
tricks ; unworthy of imitation from men whose aim should be 
VOL. XAIII. — S. S. 2 O 
