Dirtiust’l Buhim. 
THE CHICAGO STOCK SHOW. 
(RURAL SPECIAL REPORT.) 
Horses to the front; cattle exhibit smaller 
than usual; Herefords and grades “very 
successfulAn Aberdeen-Angus “the 
best steer in the show'; Short-horns; Sus¬ 
sex cattle few but fine; the Michigan 
Agricultural College exhibit; a poor 
swine and sheep show; a monstrous hog! 
bogus butter ahead of the genuine article; 
an excellent horse exhibit. 
“American” is the name claimed by the 
Fat Stock, Horse, Dairy and Poultry Shows 
now in progress in Chicago. There is some 
appropriateness in this, for there are exhi¬ 
bitors fiom Canada and from ten States, 
extending from Ohio to Nebraska, and from 
Minnesota to Tennessee. As a whole, the 
present exhibition surpasses its predecessors in 
attractiveness and in attendance It greatly 
differs from those held a few years ago. Then 
the fat cattle were the one chief attraction 
with everything else subordinate. Now the 
horse show is the chief feature. Some regret 
the change; but it certainly has made the 
show more popular, and I believe even more 
useful. There is quite as much educational 
value in the study of horses as of cattle. 
The exhibit of cattle is not so large as in 
some former years, and I think this will be 
true in future. Prizes are no longer offered 
for car-load lots, and the contests have be¬ 
come more between a comparatively small 
number of professional breeders and feeders. 
There are fewer inferior cattle than formerly 
and no extraordinarily large ones. The aver¬ 
age quality is very high. I doubt if any of 
the exhibits are equal to the very best of some 
former shows. Naturally, probably fortu¬ 
nately, the three-year-old classes are not the 
equals of those composed of younger animals. 
In final comparisons the Herefords and grades 
of the breed were very successful. The 
best steer in the show was decided to be a two- 
year-old Angus; not large but very compact 
and attractive from the butcher’s stand-point. 
Tnls steer was a prize-winner last year, and 
was but one of many illustrations of the 
possibility of maintaining an animal in very 
high condition for a long series of months. 
Whether it is profitable to do so is much less 
clear. In general the large cattle were not 
the prize-winners. There were a few 
exceptions. The best Short-horn in 
the show was a two-year-old roan steer 
weighing about 1,900 pounds, winning over a 
relatively smaller but smoother thiee-year- 
old. A Sussex won the sweepstakes prize in 
the yearling class. Never shown in large num¬ 
bers, this breed has been very successful at 
these shows. The Devons were pretty well 
shown. 
An interesting and instructive exhibit was 
made by the Michigan Agricultural College 
of steers representing six breeds. Such an ex¬ 
hibit fails to attract the favorable attention 
of many visitors, but has great interest in 
showing something of the comparative value 
of the breeds represented. The large size and 
fair quality of the Holsteins in comparison 
with the more distinct beef breeds were 
noticeable, and even the Jersey steers showed 
good size. While I have never been able to 
agree with those who call the Holsteins the 
equals of any other breed for beef, the re¬ 
markable growth of the calves of this breed 
was well shown by a pure-bred calf entered 
as nine months 13 days old with a weight of 
1,070 pounds, and of good although not of 
the very best form. 
The hog and the sheep classes are not as 
well filled as in some former years, and my 
impression is the average merit is not so great 
One of the surprises in the awards thus far 
made is that of “best barrow in the show” to 
a Poland-Chiua weighing 910 pounds. It is 
not a coarse hog, yet it is hard to believe that 
this monstrous animal is as profitable to either 
feeder or butcher, or as.desirable for the 
pork eater as one not more than half its 
weight. There was a creditable collection of 
several different breeds, but not many either 
sheep or hogs of remarkable merit. 
Dairymen seem to have definitely deter-, 
mined that they will not make the dairy de¬ 
partment of this show a success. Good butter 
and cheese are shown, but in small quantity. 
Un the other hand, the exhibit of neutral oil 
and oleo oil and of butterineis very attractive. 
I have not yet changed my belief that it 
would have been wiser for the dairymen to 
have exhibited largely in competition for the 
liberal prizes offered. As it is, very many visi¬ 
tors go away much impressed with the attrac¬ 
tiveness of the butterioe exhibit. 
The horse show is large, varied and excel¬ 
lent. The much enlarged show ring—about 
350 by 65 feet—enables the animals to be 
shown to advantage. Taking variety into ac¬ 
count, I have never seen a better horse show. 
The draft horses are in the lead in numbers, 
and the partisans of Clydesdale, Shire, French 
draft, or Percheron, have abundant materials 
for comparison. There are remarkably fine 
specimens of each breed. At this writing I 
could not readily decide which breed has the 
horse most nearly approaching my ideal of a 
draft horse. 
The Cleveland Bay, French Coach, Ameri¬ 
can Trotting, and various pony classes are 
well filled. The display of fine carriage and 
single driving horses, largely from Chicago 
and vicinity, clearly proves that, as yet, 
horses from the classes long bred here furnish 
nearly all the supply. The French Coach 
seemed to attract rather more attention than 
the Cleveland Bay, despite the uniform and 
attractive color of the latter. 
These general impressions must suffice in¬ 
stead of more specific statements, information 
for which can be had after the awards are 
made. G. e. morrow. 
fox t\)t Jjotmg. 
A VISIT TO UNCLE MARK. 
Election Morning I was seized with a sud¬ 
den desire to visit Uncle Mark, knowing just 
where he lived. I mounted my bicycle and 
started. Now, I am like thousands of other 
Rural Cousins, who belong to the Y. H.C. 
and my desire to see our famous Uncle, was 
very strong. I wanted to see what he looked 
like; if he was really and truly a man and a 
practical farmer. I wanted to see this good 
man, who has given us such good advice about 
what we should do when we grow up, and 
advice about sticking to the farm. All of 
these points, Dear Cousins, I investigated to 
my entire satisfaction. I arrived at Uncle 
Mark’s house at 11 o’clock and was informed 
by “Aunt Mark,” that he would not be at 
home before 12 o’clock, as he was at the polls, 
exercising the right of all free American citi¬ 
zens. I was told to come in and wait for him 
and I did so. As I had come to spend the day, 
I stood my “machine” up against a weeping 
willow. I entered the house and while en¬ 
gaged in pleasant conversation, the man that 
I was looking for entered the gate. I helped 
him unharness his horse,and put her in the sta¬ 
ble; then we went to the house and had dinner 
with the promise that afterwards we would 
look over the farm. 
Now, Uncle Mark owns a farm and every¬ 
thing he tells us about farming you can de¬ 
pend upon as being reliable. By this time 
I was getting well acquainted with him, and 
was thinking “I am glad I came.” After 
dinner, Uncle Mark took off his best clothes, 
and donned a regular farm outfit, saying he 
was going up in the back lots to cut down a 
tree thaChe had his eye on as a good piece 
of fire-wood for the coming winter. Before 
going, he showed me around the place. The 
first place we visited was the barn aud chicken- 
yard. This was to me th-s most interesting. 
He has several different breeds,and one variety 
was a cross between the White Dorking and 
White Wyandotte which he has mentioned in 
the Rural of recent date. One of the 
chickens, a favorite kind of his, had some 
disease. This he had shut up by herself, and 
sne looked as if she was on the fair road to 
recovery. Then he showed me his cow, a 
registered Jersey, which seemed content 
where she was eating, on the bank bordering 
the lake. This lake is situated right behind 
the house and is a beautiful sheet of water. 
He told me he intended giving a skating party 
this winter, and would like to invite all the 
Catarrh Cured 
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"I suffered with catarrh six or eight years; 
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I tried Hood’s Sarsaparilla and was greatly im¬ 
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