380 Report on the Exhibition of Live Stock at Cardiff. 
placed before the public, lower the general standard of the exhibition, and the 
practice tends to mislead beijinners as to what is and what is not a proper 
animal for a Royal Society's showyard. 
The withholding a premium under any circumstances is a very extreme 
measure. In one case only did the Judges consider themselves justified in 
resorting to it ; but had some of the better-fdled classes been reduced to 
certain entries, this verdict of "insufiScieut merit" would not have been a 
solitary one. 
In the directions given, the Judges of cart-horses have received no special 
instructions as to the nature of the report they are expected to produce. 
What follows is written under the assumption that everj' one who makes an 
entry in the Royal Agricultural Society's Catalogue submits his animal to 
the verdict of tlie public, both through the Judges' award and the notice of 
the press. To commit to pajier for public record some general commendatory- 
remarks on an individual animal, or some remote allusion to lack of merit in 
a certain class, without particularizing anytliing in it, is not a very profitable 
«mployment ; it is satisfactory to neither writer nor reader. In the task we 
have undertaken, we do not feci bound to confine our remarks to mere gene- 
ralization. Where an animal is pre-eminently meritorious, the attention of 
breeders should bo called to the fact : when an animal of reprehensible 
inferiority makes an appearance in the ring, his owner is responsible for the 
adverse criticism which is likel}' to follow. 
In our Report we shall first notice the agricultural stallions not qualified 
to compete as Clydesdales or Suffolks. Here we liad no difficulty in selecting 
three or four very good ones, the best of these being Honest Tom, a horse 
known since'the Bury St. Edmund's Meeting in 1867, as a prize winner on 
every occasion he has put in an appearance. As a 2-year-old, at Bury, he 
was a marked feature in the show ; he was then of great promise, and has 
now fulfilled the most sanguine expectations of those who thought best of 
him. As a young one, he liad a tendency to lightness in the back ribs, 
having a little too much height under the flanks. This has all disappeared ; 
he is now a good-looking, well-spread, farmer's horse, of quite the heavy 
stamp. With immense substance, he has quality enough in his legs to suit 
a Suffolk breeder, and hair enough upon them to satisfy the North or Midland 
Counties man — two things by no means incompatible, but not often seen in 
the same animal. His fore-feet are not what they should be, and he begins 
to show the effect of his spring work and summer "showing" on slightly 
arched fore-legs. The most that can be said against him is, that he is rather 
more of the dray-horse than is desirable in an agricultural stallion ; and, 
perhaps, at the time the Society offered distinct premiums for that kind of 
animal, his entry for a farm-horse premium might have been fairly objected 
to on that account. The second prize went to a bay horse of great length 
and substance, with a somewhat deficient back ; otherwise a useful animal 
with good action — a point which, perhaps, placed him before the \Niiite-leggcd 
chestnut so good to look at all round in the box and the ring, too ; but his 
want of liberty in the farm-horse's great pace — the walk — kept him from a 
higher place in the jirize list. The faults most jiatent to the e3'e in this class 
were flat feet, small feet, sidc-boncs, and light middles. Very few were defi- 
cient in trotting action, but the easy swing in the walk which a plough-horse 
should liave was not so apparent. Tiie handsome black tottering round the 
ring from sheer infirmity on all-fours should be remembered — not as a model, 
but as a caution. 
Of the 2-ycar-olds of tlie same description the best was Mr. Bryan's 
white-mancd cliestnut, a very capital style of horse without much show, but 
no weak point. His short liind-quariers and straight hocks are imsightiy, 
but betray no want of strength ; and to those who arc aiming at extra sub- 
