MAGAZINE OP SCIENCE AND ART. 
227 
Relative to a Grand Exhibition of Stock, the 
chief aim and object of this paper, it somehow is 
reported, that, when that grand event will take 
place, the head quarters are intended to he fixed in 
the metropolis. If such rumour is correct, then 
general opinion says, that no selected place could 
be more unsuitable or less accommodating to the 
breeders or feeders of this colony, than Sydney or 
vicinity. 
Exhibitions of plants or flowers, or of agricul¬ 
tural produce, are easily and cheaply managed 
affairs, when compared to those for Live Stock; 
which means, probably, all animals familiar with 
man, or almost ‘ familiar—for many cattle in the 
bush will scarcely come under that definition. 
A general show of domesticated animals will prove 
only a poor affair anywhere, and a failure if held in 
Sydney, a city standing at the head of an ocean 
bay, with a poor country on all the other sides, for 
a considerable distance inland. With a fair share 
of British experience in such matters, as a warm 
well-wisher for the prosperity of your excellent 
Institution, the writer will perhaps be permitted to 
lay before the committee and members the follow¬ 
ing fact:— 
The great Highland Society of Scotland finding 
the impracticability of obtaining a Grand Exhi¬ 
bition of Domesticated Stock, in that ancient 
kingdom, resolved to divide it into four sections, 
of which Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and 
Inverness, were the real or nominal capitals. 
In some one of these cities their Exhibition was 
held in rotation, once a year, thus completing the 
circuit of the land in four years. For instance, if 
the grand meeting, as our friend of three conso¬ 
nants, T. W. S., expresses it, should be fixed at 
Aberdeen this season, then the Counties of Banff, 
Murray, Inverness and Aberdeen, are especially in¬ 
cluded, yet none excluded. The members and 
contributors of these counties furnish one moiety 
of the expenses, and the parent society the other; 
that city wherein the show is held freely subscrib¬ 
ing to the general fund. 
If these four divisions were found necessary for 
the accommodation of the Scottish stockowners 
and farmers, with an area of country little more 
than the superficies of New England and the 
Clarence districts, and with means of transit twenty 
times more convenient than the colony commands, 
how much more necessary will it he to partition 
New South Wales. 
We know full well the difiicultits attendant on 
conveyance of ordinary stock to Sydney on many 
occasions, and how much more difficult would it 
be to get thither extraordinary animals on any 
occasion. The expenses w r ould drink up the wine, 
cups and all if brought from long distant quarters, 
for most animals, would by that time shew little 
else than a beggarly skinful of bones. Few men 
will adventure a trial. 
There seems to be a remarkable tendency to 
concentrate every matter of consequence in Sydney, 
just as if Sydney ought to be the Jerusalem of our 
colonial veneration, and all country folks (who 
have money) ought to go up, once a year, to spend 
it. As for those -who have got little cash ami less 
credit, they had best stay at home, as their visits 
will be considered equally unwelcome, unpleasant, 
and unprofitable. 
Fair play, my masters, if you please. Why 
should not Goulburn, or Bathurst, or Maitland, 
or Armidale—towns situated in the centres of corn 
or cattle producing districts—have a higher claim 
than the metropolis to be selected as head quarters, 
alternando, for the Society’s exhibitions of live 
stock and all kinds of industrial productions. 
Should the Society extend its encouraging in¬ 
fluences through the country, it will increase its 
usefulness fifty fold. Let us go to them, if country 
people will not come to us. Example, ’tis example 
more than precept which always acts as the con- 
vincer and converter to callous minds. 
There is one little matter to settle as a prelimi¬ 
nary to such rural exhibitions, and the question 
has not been publicly mooted in the Australias to 
the writer’s knowledge. It has perplexed many a 
wise head, hut from the high intellectual abilities 
of the Society’s committee, probably they will be 
able to master and resolve the question at conclu¬ 
sion of this paper, with facility and correctness. 
It is of no mean importance for a query similar, 
engaged the attention of no less a personage than 
Napoleon III., before the Poissy Exhibition 
of fat stock from all nations. M. de Morn ay, 
the French Minister of Agriculture, like most 
other public ministers, had deemed his word to be 
law, and so fixed the date from which the ages 
of animals should be computed, by his own ipse 
dixit , without consulting the exhibitors. This de¬ 
termination operated against the British compe¬ 
titors so greatly, that a memorial was got up and. 
forwarded to M. Momay, requesting, that the date 
for regulating ages in general should be altered, or 
else British stock could not be entered for exhi¬ 
bition. 
The date was speedily altered, as desired. In 
Australia it is still more difficult than in Europe, 
to ascertain correctly the ages of stock, to a week, 
or even a month. Practical men know nearly' the 
ages of young stock by mark of mouth, or of 
horns, if they have got any, or by the number of 
teeth, and various other indications. These, how¬ 
ever, are all approximations, which often vary from 
local causes, so much as six or nine months from 
the general index, and probably two-thirds of the 
calves and foals corue to the birth unseen of man, 
in the pastoral districts of this colony. 
Proposed then :—From what day or days of 
which month or months, as a general rule for the 
colony, should the ages of Domestic Stock, such 
as those of the horse, or ox, or sheep species, he 
henceforth reckoned, if brought forward for public 
exhibition and competition in New South Wales? 
NATIVE PLANTS, AND THE PASTORAL, 
AGRICULTURAL AND HORTICULTURAL, 
RESOURCES OF AUSTRALIA. 
No. 5. 
T. W. Shepherd. 
The pastoral resources, or more properly the natural 
pastures of our country, the necessity for, and the 
means of rendering these mom permanently' produc¬ 
tive than hitherto, has been the theme of four preced¬ 
ing papers, which I have had the honour of introducing 
to the notice of my fellow-members. And although 
feeling a thorough conviction that I have fallen very 
far short of doing the subject that justice which its 
importance merits, yet I feel bound, in accordance 
with my original promise, to proceed now to tho consi¬ 
deration of the capabilities of the country, in a more 
strictly agricultural direction, and, in the first instance, 
particularly with reference, to our power of producing 
bread—the staff of life—in sufficient abundance at 
least to supply our own requirements, if not indeed tc. 
furnish a considerable surplus for exportation to less 
favoured countries. 
