JUDGING ON POINTS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1570, 14 October 1912, Page 8

JUDGING ON POINTS.

RATIONAL USE OF SCOEE CARD. A scale of points in judging gives a greater power of analysis than an nnI'ofiscious mental process which dockets

the animal as good, bad, or indifferent (writes Mr. L. Ogilvy, in the "Breeders' Gazotto"). It gives a reasonable foundation, on which to figure just.as learning tho multiplication table is a preliminarj to merely visualising figures and arriving nt-tho result almost instantaneously,:; having eliminated any conscious mental' process."- If tlie score card did nothing inoro than to iix 100 per cent, in a judge's mind, it would accomplish a liberal education for the young breeder, for he can work around tliat point the rest ..of his fife and the total of his efforts • cannot exceed it. . .

...That.loo per cent., however, as it is divided, will apply to wool and mutton, milk and beef, .size and quality. Most anything can bo proved by . figures. I have seen a dual-purpose cow, says Mr. Ogilvy. scored 100 per cent., and from the dunl-purpost/mail's point of view the scoring was correct. Yet the cow was very ordinary either as a beef animal or as a dairy cow. It is perhaps not to be denied that soma breeds are over-specialised, though tlii3 only applies to tho few—not tho :majority. '."An. honest effortto approximate '100 per cent, of perfection will prove a task sufficient for most of us. We arc ;likely to .start too high in scoring animals,- rating not by comparison* with an ideal or the best we ever saw, but' in comparison with the normal and not the superlative. I have known a judge, the .writer' adds, to score so easily produced and changed a creature as a chicken 100 per cent., and in conversation afterwards say: "I like that bird. He is a rare good one, and if his head were just & wee bit farther forward and maybe his tail a. weo bit lower, he would be just about perfect; Yea, he might weigh another pound, and his pencilling is not so good as the second • bird's, and I have seen them better set on their hocks, but he is a grand bird." And so he was, but in scoring him a 100 per cent., tho judge was not sticking to an exact standard, but one set by limitations which circumscrilie the breodor's art and set his limitations at nearor 80 than 100 per cent.