The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1865-03-14 00:00:00

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OUR AGRICULTURAL FAIRS AND

M.kRICE'fS.

FROM FYNE ON kGRIC LTURAL Figs AND
MARK ECTS."
Journal of Bath and West of England S4eirsy.

ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF CATTLE SALES BY ArwrlON.
A. great and spontanisous facility for the disposal of
fat stock has of recent years everywhere sprung no in
the shape of sales by auction. The use of fairs and old
estab'ished markets being principally for the acquisition
and their° al of store cattle and sheep, as well as horses,
the form of disposal just referred to may be t don to
represent the best and speedrest. as well as the most
healthy and regular mode of dreughting off to the
readiest and most certain market the stock of the farm,
as it reaches maturity. Its growth and progress as an
institution of sale in our western counties, remote from
London, ass no doubt principally attributable to the
certain returns it necessarily produces to the seller,
exempt from all ordinary risks of market fluctuation;
heyond any influence exerted by the current rates of the
day ; whilst the buyer, if subjected to a little public
competition, is, on the other hand, freed from the
despotic imposit on upon him of indifferent animals
along with such as he may really want; for the farmer
dealing by private bargain will &leapt demand to have
"the bad taken along with the good ;" and so, In order
to secure the one, the buyer has no choice but to
purchase also the other, whether he will or not. The
auction system is founded on the commercial sales'
system of brokerage. The licensed or sworn broker at
a commercial port advertises his lists of cargo, or ether
consignments, for public disposal, at a given place and
time, and in point of fact submits the different lots to
competition by auction as the best means of testing the
state of the market demand. Prices of colonial and
foreign produce are ruled acoording to the results of
these brokers' cabs, and have long been so. Why then
should not the same mode of settling the state of the
demand and the rates obtainable for native produce be
equally sound and satisfactory A mongst a variety of
comments on, rather than objections to, the auction
system, it is said that the agriculturist is deprived uf
the essential stimulus of interesting himself in the
disposal of his own stook. But we do not aonoeive that
the objection to which we have already given effect, as
regards the exclusion of the farmer from the corn-
market in favour of the corn-dealer, holds good as
regards the sale of stock by auction. Perlurps the moat
interesting occasions in the breeder's existence are those
on which he periodically assembles around him, for
this very object, his friends and supporters from all
quarters, and holds his periodical letting and sale by
auction, seldom realising less than £2,000 at a time, and
Invariably calling forth all the enthusiasm and
eneouragement due to hi, efforts as an agriculturist
But it is not the case that his interest in disposal of
live stock is withdrawn by their being sent for sale to
the auction mart. There he attends in person much
more to his personal ease and comfort, and infinitely
better assured in mind, and mush more void of all mis-
givings as to results, than in open market. The pro-
gress of the most successful of those establishments for
fortnightly sales by auction affords indeed striking
illustration of the truth which it may be taken as the
inferential object of this paper to demonstrate—that
extensions and improvements in market seaommodation
of any sort are invariably attended with •
marked increase of business, and other benefits
of a natural but important kind. It is only to be ex-
pected that wherever the frequenters of a public
market, whether as buyers or sellers, meet with a son-
genial reception, and fin] that they can always reckon on
meeting with those with whom they can do business,
they flock more and more together to those spots which
they find the most central. The spots in question are
doubtless intimately dependent at the present day on
our railway connections. But we shall best illustrate
the consequences which ensue from the cultivation of
market facilities at an appropriate station, by pointing
out what is now, and has for some time past, been going
on at Dorchester, which is situated at the point of
junction of the two great systems of railway that
traverse the district, not only from one extremity to
another, but which constitute also a great network of
lines interlacing its principal depdts of agriculture and
commerce. Yet Dorchester, not many years ago, was
destitute of any sort of corn or cattle market accommo-
dation beyond what was afforded by the public streets;
and a cattle-market held in a crowded throughfare is
surely most objectionable. On the opening, first of the
Sonth-Western, and thereafter of the Great Western
(Wilts and Dorset), lines of railway, an effort was made
to secure accommodation for sheep and cattle in a field,
called the Fair Field, approximate to these stations,
but not nearly as spacious or so clone to them as bad been
desired, and thus the streets of the town *ere relieved
of the sheep and cattle, and encumbered only with the
pigs, which still continue to be penned weekly opposite
the market inns of the lower part of the town, and at
the remotest extremity from the Fair Field ; and on
occasion of horse fairs, there ale° horses are still shown
in the public street, and trotted up and down in great
numbers, to the manifest peril of life and limb. It is
known, however, that even, owing to this improvement,
by which the cattle were removed from the streets to
the Fair Field (sheep at the great sheep fairs being
shown upon the ancient and elevated site of Poundbury,
half-amide to the westward of the town), although tte
accommodation must be regarded as very cramped,
dealers were found to resort to Dorchester froin quite
different parts of the country, and in Much larger
numbers than used to be the ease. We believe that no
chaege for the accommodation of bullocks is ever made,
whilst that for sheep is about ls. 6d. per score for the
use of hurdles provided by the Corporation. Here
butchers, in their ordinary transactions with farmers
with whom they regularly deal, are allowed a month's
credit on their market purchases, but not in fairs where
all transactions are for ready money. The general
prsctioe in the district is now, however, for farmers to
send their stock for sale by auction at the Dorchester
fortnightly sales, making their entries from a week to
tea days previously. Thepe entries being briefly adver-
tised in the leading itericultdral papers, the very fact of
their public announcement for some time beforehand
constitutes a new and important feature in these trans-
actions, and adds greatly to the definite character and
object of the attendance. To these sales, in fact, stock
is sent from Devon, Somerset, and all parts of Wilts,
Hants, and Dorset; and dealers attend them (eagerly
from London, the Isle of Wight, Portsmouth, South-
amptou, Lymington, fre., on the one hand, and from all
the towns and stations along the Great Western lines
and connectiens on ,the other I indeed ft DID° tincora inoh
thing to see from 15 to 20 trucks filled with cattle des-
patched from these sales to their destinations on
Saturday evening, independently of such as may be
otherwise removed. The stock at these sales is usually
put up in lots, and sold at so much per head; the farmer
still tries to adhere to his old notion of disposing of the
bad with the good ; but the auctioneer, nesting braet
how to obtain a Price, Classifies the animals in a mush
better manner, and thus the result is that of disposing
of all to the best advantage. This mode of dealing is in
reality as precise as that of Smithfield, where the rates
for the day are reckoned at per stone to a fraction of a
penny, "sinking offal ;" because good judges of animals,
such as attend those sales, can always tell the dead or
live weight of an animal to within half a score of lbs.
It has been remarked, that since the institution of these
sales the butchers do not go so much round amongitthe
farmers; and tome of the butchers lir the vicinity
usually held Large army and navy oontrects, whilst the
majority will be Found contributing their quota to that
enormous mass of country-killed meat-100,000,0001b'.
per annum —which finds Its way to Newgate and
Leadenhall markets, over and above the live stock sold
in the metropolitan cattle-markets (estimated at 250,000
head of nettle and 1,500,000 sheep annually). The
benefit and even saving of coat in making purchases is I
obvious, and the farniere are Well teamed not to have
their stock " picked," by means of these visitations, but
left to be dreughted off for sale under their own
management.
The Deighhourheod of reobil Is Onk arbiOb ms#
pronounced rich in the Metter lit ginning; bdt the popu-
latioe being littentilro, much of the locally grazed beef
is consumed in the neighbourhood. Of the stook
brought to Yeovil market much nevertheless is bought
up by dealers who dispose of their purchases in different
parts of the country. A great maw animals are thus
sent for sale to the markets at Highbridge and Bristol,
whilst son., go into Wales. With regard to payments,
the custom of these markets is ready money (cheques)
for cattle, and one month's credit fob corn. The corn is
delivered free by the teller either et thir buyer's re-
'sidence, or at the nisateat isilrepy leatilin; according tp
eorivenience, a ghillie?? per load being given for "sself
money" by the seller. It may be ebserved that the
feirs at Yeovil are two yearly, on 27th June.and 7th
November, unless these claire fall either on Friday or
Saturday, in which base the fairs art Postponed to the
Monday folloWing. The Yeovil fairs are not mentioned
in " Doomsday Book." They mast, therefore, have been
granted by one of the kings (in whose possession the
manor was held) sabsemeent to the time of William the
Conqueror.
(To be concluded is our nate)

A &wont Alt hiAttareds took p,ace recently at the
Regietrar's often, Pewsey;. Wilts— he brid4rooni being
deaf Mid dumta and the bride having it woMen leg!
A SZASONAIILz litelT.—" A person leaving a warm
room and going into a colder, or into the open air,
should carefully close the lips for • few minutes, until
he has become, as it were, acclimatized to the solder
atmosphere, and breathe through the nostrils alone, by
which the cold air is made to traverse the long warm
nasal passage before it reaches the windpipe and vocal
organs; and its temperature being thus raised, One
common mode of "catching cold" is 'vended. Most
persona upon leaving a warm church Or hot Cb_ncert-
toont imitediehly iitien their rheriths to dinettes the
merits of those they have just heard, and Many a severe
sold is taken. It is equally common, but still worse,
for • public speaker to do so, for his throat is more
heated from his recent exertions, and be may, and often
does, become hoarse for a month by such apparently
trifling neglect."—C. W. Sias A's "Cterical Elocution."
FLOGGING IN Till ARMY.— By a return issued on
Monday it appears that in the year 1862 the number of
men flogged in the army was 3711. the lashes inlicted
being 18,180. No punishment of this description was
inflicted in the mihtia in the sanie 'period. There were
also 1,492 soldiers marked with the letter D., and 37
with the letters B.C.
Ties RILPORTZD LOBB Or THR GALATIA.--SairSlT
ON TUN MISSING &left—We (Western Morning News)
are happy to be able to announce that, not only is her
Majesty's ship Galatea safe, but that the miming boats
haVe returned 10 the *easel, and that no life has been
lost. The wife of ap assistant engineer of (he Galat,e,
minding at Stonehonso, has favoured us with extracts
of a letter received by her on Monday from her husband,
dated "Off Fortress Monroe, 12th February." They
show that, although the affair ended without mcident,
the Galatea was herself in some danger, and thuds for
several huurs anxiety existed on board respecting the
fate of the two boats which were driven away from
the ship.
MALT lIBRO IN DIINWING.—A return of nts' in
brewing beer for sale in each of the ye,
1863, and 1864, just issued, shows ti'
quantities in each year were; in v.
bushels, 35,424.061 hesitate bushels,
40,099,867 bushels; in 6•;1-edid;,. 1,641,138 beau.
1,636.777 tombola, I,BBB,2s7)Auithele,' mid 2,021,ó.
bushels; and in Ireland, 2,867,354 bushels, 2,336,92111
4tlffilleiss 4412,710 bugle* wt2.507,00a oquaels. ..,1
GSATIFTING INTICLUGINON,v-It must he grstifyil
to those who have found out the value of Bettc94
DIAMOND SLACIt 1,41 AD, Ifenn, that it is need t a
Palm*. of the Queen, and ninee of Wales. The 13741
-deraustioe were among Its
.flrey patrol)°,