STUD STOCK SELLING.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4760, 6 October 1924, Page 3

STUD STOCK SELLING.

SYSTEM IN SOUTH AMERICA. A LEISURELY AFFAIR, A writer in the Aberdeen-Angus Review (Scotland) discusses the sale ygrds at Buenos Aires, where the imported stock are sold. He writer : I question if the byre accommodation is sufficient for more than about one hundred and twenty cattle, say thirty along each side, and an equal number on each side of the central division. There are no separate pens, a!U the cattle being arranged in rows, while the sale ring is simply a clear space between the cattle and the back premises. A low gallery on two sides faces the box, and the centre of the “ring” is well littered with straw; which I suppose is considered useful in .the case of a rather high-standing animal, A sale in Argentine is a leisurely affair. I do not know what the record may be, but certainly I should think that a good hour's work at our spring sales would represent quite as large a turnover in numbers as a day's sale in Argen-. tine. Everything is done in a leisurely way. If a sale be timed to start two o’clock in the afternoon, which is the usual’hour, the first animal may be got into the ring somewhere about three o'clock. Bidding is exasperatingly slow. The bids may be intermingled with speeches from the auctioneer as to the points in breeding of the animal to be isoild. There is no hurrying in knocking out an animal, and the competitors are allowed plenty of time to think matters out well ere the tiny silver hammer fallls. If there is no competition there is no sale. Animals are put in at what we would term an upset price, and if any offer beyond that be made then business takes place. Thus the comparatively limited accommodation whicn one sees at the saleyards is amply sufficient for material for a two or three days’ sale.