EARLY MATURITY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2815, 26 February 1908, Page 6

EARLY MATURITY.

A Xorth Island agricultural society is gieatly exercised on the question of awarding a champion jirize i' 1 the cattle section to a yelling anim.il, and has applied to the lending English s-ncioty for guidance. The question has been argued mcr and ovei again, hut no conclusive decision has been arrived at, anc' every society is free to follow its own course in the matter. In New Zealand fhe question has seldom arisen in connection •with cattle or horses, but has frequently occurred in regard to sheep, a honget receiving the highest honour. The argument against suet awards is that a precocious juvenile often fails in matuiity to realise oi confirm its youthful promise, and no doubt this is sometimes the case. On the other hand, early maturity in animals used for food is now such an important desideratum that it cannot be ovpi looked in the bioerling classes. Further, a yearling cattle beast may be anything up to two years of age, and <i hogget is generally 15 or 16 months old when exhibited, and should .it that age have definitely assumed the characteristics of maturity. It would be discouraging to the cultivation of this important quality if the animals which possess it in the most marked degree were debarred fiom receiving reward for their excellence, always premising that in breeding animals overfeeding must be a disqualification. Yearling cattle, and even cahes, have been strikingly successful at fat stock shows during the last year or two. culminating in the championship or the Chicago International Show being rarried off in 1906 by an 11-months-old Hereford calf weighing; (alive) 9751b. and last December by a 15-months shorthorn weighing 10801b. Methods of feeding in New Zealand are unequal to the production of such infantile \vnnd«r=. but both these awaids were made by British judges, so that it may be assumed that calf beef is recognised as the aim of bleeders and feeders — the latter cannot be termed graziers, as the champion animals -were kept on their dams until a few weeks before the shows, and probably neveT set foot on grass. " Hothouse lamb " will be put quite in the shade by "hothouse beef. ' New Zealand graziers are not- unaware of the desirableness of fattening their cattle at an earlier age than war a few years ago considered practicable. A number of well-fed two-year-old cattle are now marketed, and mos.t grazieis endeavour to get their cattk fit for the butcher

under thre© y©ars ofcf. This cannot be accomplished unless the stock are well bred as well as well reared, and early maturing qualities in "the head of tha herd " will be in increasing request here, as in older countries.