FAT STOCK SHOWS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2487, 10 March 1881, Page 4

FAT STOCK SHOWS.

(From the “ Mark Lane Express,” Nov 29) The season of fat stock shows has come round once again, and we shall shortly know what there is to be learned from them in 1880. There can be no doubt but that these exhibitions have been attended by very considerable educational gain to the agricultural world. Taken in connection with breeding stock shows, they form a system of instruction which, with all its shortcomings, has proved to be of great value. There are failings and abuses in connection with the entire system of stock exhibition in this country which we have repeatedly pointed out, and against which we have strongly protested. Until quite recently it has been the custom to offer prizes for over aged animals, a system which tended to nothing but waste, and taught no useful lesson whatever. It also enabled over-fed animals to take high honours, whilst representing at the same time a very low market value ; being, in fact, mere blubber. This has been remedied to a great extent in respect of the over-aged classes, but the wasteful feeding of show animals seems at present to be a factor which cannot be eliminated from our show system. Last year we published a set of tables with the age in days, the weight in pounds, and the daily rate of increase from birth of every beast exhibited at Islington, with the exception of cows and cattle whose ages were not definitely stated on the catalogue; and comparative averages were also given, showing the relative positions of the various breeds in respect of their early maturity These tables cost a great deal of labour, but they served a very useful purpose, and it is our intention to repeat them. Early maturity and the consuming value of the carcase should constitute the end and object of fat stock shows ; but this desideratum can hardly be expected to be arrived at until the judges are chosen solely from the ranks of butchers and salesmen. In the United States the fat stock show system is in its infancy ; but it has been commenced on a thoroughly practical basis, the judges being men who are habitual buyers of finished animals, and not, as with us, men who the are producers of the article to be adjudicated upon. It does l seem not a little ridiculous to see a lot of breeders judging their own handiwork, and, as we have often contended, the result can never be thoroughly satisfactory until this office is taken out of their hands.