Report on the Exhibition of Live-Stock at Shrewsbury, 1884. 637 
and all brought into the judging-ring. One consisted of the 
sire, five years old, a two year-old heifer, two year-old bull, 
yearling heifer, and heifer calf ; the second (in the order of 
position in the Catalogue) contained a bull, eleven years old, 
two cows, aged respectively seven and five years, and a bull four 
years old ; the third, a bull of four years old, as the sire, a couple 
of heifers about two years old, a bull of about twenty months, and a 
heifer-calf ; and the fourth, a sire aged nearly six years, a two year- 
old heifer, two yearling heifers, and one yearling bull. Family 
classes are now looked upon with much favour, as having a 
greater tendency than the exhibition of single specimens to encou- 
rage general improvement in the herds of the country. Some 
persons have entertained the idea that the action of the Royal 
Agricultural Society of England might be usefully extended to 
rewards for the best herds at home ; but as this is already to a 
certain carried out in the awards of prizes for the best-managed 
farms, and as the educational advantages of bringing before the 
public in the Showyard the best farm live-stock that the country 
can produce, are important, it is difficult to see how the principle 
suggested can be better observed than in the offer of prizes for 
family-groups or other collections of animals ; as for example, four 
heifers belonging to the same owner, as exhibited in two classes 
of the Hereford section at Shrewsbury. The chief objection 
against the class which competed for the Shorthorn Society's 
prizes was on account of the inequality of the ages of animals 
contained in it, and the consequent difficulty of justly balancing 
the merits of the " promising " young cattle, and of cattle 
which had passed their best days, against those of cattle in the 
prime of maturity and height of condition. This may be worthy 
of consideration, although amendment of the conditions does 
not seem very easy, and the same objection that applies to the 
exhibition of bull and offspring applies with still more force to 
the exhibition of cows with their offspring. Approximate 
equality in age, if that is sufficiently desirable, might be secured 
by the insertion of a condition that the offspring of the bull should 
be all calved in one year ; but that condition would not be 
applicable to a class for cows and their offspring, because a cow, 
in the ordinary course of breeding, does not usually produce 
more than one calf in the year. The fact that one or two of 
the bulls had better stock elsewhere than in the class with them, 
was also urged as an argument against the usefulness of the 
class, upon the ground, that if the first prize were awarded 
to a bull which is not really the best stock-getter, the second 
prize to one which is not the second best, and so forth, the 
object of the Shorthorn Society in offering the prize would be 
defeated. The object, it is assumed, is not to give the prize to 
