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Home Department, 
ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
The Report read at the Annual Meeting of this Society, held 
11 th December , 1852, attracted considerable interest, from its being 
found to embody and adopt the recommendation of the Committee 
with respect to the regulations under which live stock should 
be for the future allowed to compete at the Annual Exhibition of 
the Society. 
For some time past the Council of the Society have felt 
that considerable alterations were called for in regard to 
their annual exhibition. Established originally for the pur- 
pose of improvement in the breed of animals, the shows have 
of late years consisted almost exclusively of over-fatted beasts, 
and the objects of the Society have thus been diverted to 
• merely encouraging the feeding of animals for the butcher 
rather than improving the breed. The consequence has been 
that aged animals, useless for breeding purposes, have, by 
the use of milk, meal, oil-cake, and similar descriptions of 
food, been fattened up to a great weight, and have carried off 
the principal prizes of the Society. Young heifers have, 
upon the same mistaken principle, been fattened for the pur- 
poses of show, utterly regardless of the future value of their 
breeding qualities, many of those which have taken the larger 
prizes not having afterwards given birth to a single live calf. 
The evil of over-feeding has also been manifest in the almost 
total concealment of the natural forms of the best breeds of 
sheep and cattle, and the great difficulty of arriving at a cor- 
rect opinion of their merits. In addition to this, it has been 
for some time a subject of general observation and regret, 
that many of the best breeders of stock have refused to send 
their animals to the show, as they knew there would be no 
chance of their obtaining a prize when put in competition 
with fatter animals, and they declined to sacrifice good breed- 
ing qualities to mere feeding capabilities. In order, there- 
fore, to prevent the judges awarding the prizes of the Society 
to the animals whose merit consists rather in their value to 
the butcher, or in too many instances to the tallow-melter, 
than in their qualifications of breed, some very useful regu- 
lations have been drawn up by the Council. 
The principal of these regulations are — 
