594 
Report of the Live-Stock 
of the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society — their un- 
willingness to fetter exhibitors unnecessarily in their endeavours 
to set their entries off to the best advantage — must quickly find 
its limit. The very necessities of agriculturists should urge men, 
whose offices are created to promote the interest of agriculture, 
to step in to check practices which discredit the whole system 
of showing, and which jeopardise the trade in live-stock with 
foreigners. The Royal Society virtually says to farmers, " See, 
there are the animals you should breed ; " and to strangers who 
come to buy, " These are the best that England can produce." 
And when the farmer comes to look, he finds an amount of 
trickery (not to say cruelty) practised which would get a country 
dealer hooted out of a pothouse ; and when the foreign buyer 
examines his purchase, he finds he has been taken in like the 
buj'Crs of a painted bird in a London park or square. Does 
any one really believe that pigs — whose snouts are to them much 
what their trunks are to the elephants — are the better because 
their noses (partly through breeding for malformation, but partly, 
too, by downright fracture) are made useless ? A more pitiable 
sight than a pen of prize pigs does not exist. They can hardly 
breathe : they can't feed themselves except from vessels specially 
formed to help their monstrosity : they are all blubber, with 
little of the lean flesh which is Avholesome food for men. As 
well reward cows with an abortive udder, and horses with mal- 
formed feet, as pigs for short faces. Every right feeling is in 
revolt against all this nonsense. Either let pigs be left altogether 
to the managers of booths at country fairs ; or let such as are 
rewarded at the Royal Exhibition of Agriculture be genuine 
farm-stock ; such as could pick up the scattered grain and put 
it to good account, can graze the pastures or turn up the litter 
in the fold-yard after the fattening cattle. The Berkshires were 
all this, and so were the Large Whites. But the curse of fancy 
points is corrupting the former. The display of Berkshires at 
Reading was magnificent. It is a thousand pities that it should 
be hinted in disparagement of a really grand boar and sow, 
that this or that was not " quite correct in its markings." What 
have markings to do with merit in a pig, except perhaps streaks 
in the bacon ? The Report of the Judges of Pigs is so full, 
and so authoritative, from the position which these gentlemen 
held, that it does not seem necessary to do more than make 
these general statements. 
Itcport of tlie Judges of Pigs. 
With the exception of the International Sliow, held at Kilburn, the entries 
of pigs at Reading were more numerous than for some years. This may, 
perhaps, be partially accounted for by the introduction into the prize-list of 
classes for Middle White Breed Pigs, and by the fact that the Show was lield 
in the home of the Berkshires, which mustered so strongly, both in numbers 
