The Sun.
London, England, 1860-12-11 00:00:00

much attention cannot be bestowed upon standard
pure breeds, on the development and perpetuation
of which the excellence and improvement of the
meat-making crosses entirely depends.
Mr. Cartwright's cross between -horthorn and
polled Angus, Mr. Baker's cross l'etween Short-
horn and Hereford, Mr. Longmo ••P's cow, a cross

between Shorthorn and Aberdeen, and also Mr.
Gibbs' cow, a cross between Shorthorn and Alder-
ney, are meritorious examples in a very fine show
of good cross or mixed breed animals.
The Long-wool Sheep are about an average
exhibition. Mr. Twitchell's gold medal pen is of
unusual merit for size and splendid quality. Mr.
Foljambe's Leicesters exceedingly beautiful.
Among the Cross-bred sheep are several magni-
ficent pens. Mr. John Overman's wethers, justly
winning the prize, are amazingly great and hand-
some, and have the rare merit of being fairly shorn;
and Mr. White's are nearly as good. Some of the
sheep in the classes which have received prizes and
commendations from the judges have their backs
clipped into perfectly horizontal planes, so as to
give an outward appearance of breadth which the
frame of the animals does not possess. Among the
Southdown sheep Mr. Kent, Mr. Rigden, the Earl
of Leicester, Lord Walsingham, 'and Sir It. G.
Throckmorton take honours. Why do judges per-
sist in awarding the highest honour to sheep which
appear to be cleverly though unequally trimmed,
so as to conceal defects in the back and swell out
the sides to unreal dimensions ? In all the Short-
wool, as well as in the cross-bred classes, this
fraudulent practice is too evident, and in the pens of
extra stock Short-woolled ewes is a glaring case.
Lord Walsingham's ewe is of rare merit, and is
properly and fairly shorn, and is commended ; the
silver medal is conferred upon a ewe of good form
enough, with a pretty head and fine bone, but
apparently so managed in the shearing that the
wool is now about a couple of inches long on the
shoulders, and barely half an inch on the loin.
The pigs show very well, and in good numbers.
His Royal Highness takes a first prize for three
fat little beauties, marvellously developed for their
age, which is between three and four months. Mr.
Baker, Mr. Morland, Mr. Beale, and Mr. Crisp are
great in these fine classes of most valuable animals.
Black pigs appear to be in better favour than
heretofore.
Baker-street Bazaar contains no feathered won-
ders to attract the admirers of rare poultry or
polite pigeon-fanciers, and there is no exhibition
(as at Birmingham) appealing to our national taste
for dogs, and exciting our reminiscences of the
cover and preserve, of the " down-charge" and
" tally-ho." But we do not see why such objects of
undoubted interest to a metropolitan population as
well as to country connoisseurs should not be com-
prehended in future exhibitions at the new Hall.
At present, though strictly agricultural as far as
may be, the show, deviating from its original
character as a meat competition only, has been
obliged to include the now equally important
feature of farm machinery. The annual production
of the British implement trade cannot be put at
less than £2,000,000 sterling. The progress of
good husbandry, the growth of rural inventiveness,
the successful career of the Royal Agricultural and
other societies, and the cheapening of transport for
heavy goods by means of our reticulation of rail-
ways have developed large factories for meeting the
necessities of the farmer with improved mechanism,
saving labour and multiplying results in every
department of cultivation and cattle feeding ; and
we can now boast of such establishments as the
Stamp-end Works at Lincoln, the most extensive
of all our manufactories of threshing-machines;
the Spittlegate Works at Grantham, the Orwell
Works at Ipswich, the new, beautiful, and unique
Britanniq, Ironworks, where the Bedford ploughs
are made, and others on a similar scale. Messrs.
Clayton and Shuttleworth, Hornsby, Tuxford,
Ransome and Sons, A. and E. Croskill, Garrett and
Son, Barrett and Exall, J. and F. Howard, Page,
Richmond and Chandler, Ashby and Co.—in fact,
all our principal makers, with a host of smaller
firms, have stands, necessarily very restricted in

compass, for the display of their productions ; the
whole forming an extraordinary repository of first-
class machinery. In steam cultivation are repre-
sented the steam plough of Mr. Fowler, the steam
cultivator of Mr. smith, the steam plough of Messrs.
Chandler and Oliver, the guideway steam hus-
bandry of Mr. Halkett, a similar system (without
the guideway rails) of Mr. Grafton, the locomotive
of Mr. Aveling.
Not the mechanism only, but the crops of the
farmer are duly illustrated, especially the green
crops and roots.
The singllarly plastic plant which Linnious called
a brassica has been strangely transformed by long
cultivation, till its leaves are now cabbage and tole,
its roots turnip, and its stalk kohl-rabi, and a great
many remarkable specimens are exhibited on the
stalls of Messrs. Lawson, Messrs. Sutton, Messrs.
Skirving, Messrs. George Gibbs, Messrs. Thomas
Gibbs and Co., of Half-moon-street, Piccadilly (the
seedsmen of the Royal Agricultural Society), and
other firms. Messrs. Thomas Gibbs's grand collec-
tion of seed samples for the farmer and florist,
their dried specimens of cereals and British and
foreiga grasses, the heaviest and most refined
quality of roots, wheats raised by annual selection
from single grains, &c., always attract much atten-
tion on these occasions; and the perfect truth of
sample of even the smallest or lightest grass seeds
certainly furnishes a fine study in agricultural
botany. It is computed that £4,000,000 worth of
guano, bones, and other portable manures, and
probably four times this worth of farmyard dung,
are applied yearly to the tillage lands of the British
Isle, a principal proportion being employed to raise
the bulbs which are a comparatively newly-intrc-
duced crop among us. The swedes and common
turnips shown are generally large and excellent ;
the still more valuable mangolds exhibit greater
dependence upon a kindly season.
Is it really necessary that there should be no pri-
vate-view day for this great exhibition ? As long
as the Club collection is farmed out as at present,
of course it is for the proprietor of the Bazaar to
fix his own rates of admission with a view to the
largest gross receipts; but we doubt whether the
cosmopolitan shilling for every day of the show is
really the most paying fee. Live stock and agri-
cultural machinery are so popular with fashion-
able society that a first day's " private view" at ss.
(with a half-crown admittance towards evening)
would certainly attract an assembly of visitors
at least equal in numbers and in gentility
to those annually delighted with the exhibi-
tion at Birmingham. At any rate, when the
Club removes to its new Agricultural Hall, and

obtains ample space for a complete display of imple-
ments and curiosities, and facilities for including
still more popular sights, such a day ought to be
stipulated for. In the days when our loftiest no-
bility, and their ladies too, patronise displays of
agricultural rarities, it is unbearable for elegant and
recherche millinery to run the gauntlet of the
jammed galleries and be rudely dragged through a
mob of butchers' men, drovers, or any other unclean
and unsavoury meat-fanciers who may happen to be
clustering round the prize ox. Besides, the public
look to their daily newspaper for a notice which
may guide them to the choice points of all the vari-
ous departments of the show, instead of waiting
until the history of the week appears in the farmers'
Weekly Messenger or Mark-lane _Express : and how
can the most intelligent and active reporting critic
discover the chief beauties and deformities in the
course of an hour or two's scramble and scurry after
8 .o'clockvecloisne thewith"va suggestion : if our Royal family
might be classed by a
engaged in agriculture,"satis tiitci acno u
ladm ohnagr d
ltyh obsee
ranked among the great abettors of the Turf; yet
jockeys are allowed to aspire for:34tiotuhee"nQoafefeono'ds
plate," while competitors in the pr
for the nation have no such Imperial honour to
crown their achievements. Has her Majesty no
challenge cup for the noble English shorthorn, for
the handsome Hereford, the hardy Scot, or the
Devon, whose ruddy beauty now adds to the attrac-
tions of Windsor ?
The following is the award of prizes :
CATTLE.

CLASS I.—DEVON STEERS, NOT EXCEEDING 3 YEARS
OLD,—First Prize of £25 to Mr. W. Heath, of Ludham-