The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-01-24
BRITISH CATTLE LOOK ROUGH AT
 GREAT STOCK SHOW
Only Thing That Counts Is Blood, and Little Care Is
 Given to Appearance
By MARGARET WALTER

London January Reciprocal News service. )-The cattle at an Eng fish stock show make no prtense to be anything but eattle-"beasts, as they are named in the catalogue No dolling up here, no sleekly oiled hides, no poll ished hoofs. no gilded horns.
 The only thing that counts is blood. Breeding is what they want in England and breeding they have got to perfec tion It looks as if in spite of five years of low feeding and neglect. Eng fish cattle still hold the championship for quality. It is admitted however, that the standard of weight has fallen --an average drop of about hundred weight.
 Instead of the silk hats and smart clothes and gaiety of an American stock show, with the music and blaze of light. you might think. once inside the agricultural hall, 1slington in the heart of London, that you had been transported to the fabulous wild
 west" Here all the bars are down. men in flannel shirts stride about in top boots and broad brimmed gray felt hats. farmers tap their thighs with
 their crops as they stand in groups around the pens. talking rough stable stuff. Men and women in well worn
 tweeds thump fat steers with their bare knuckles. The greatest breeders
 in the land exchange jokes with rough
 Highland shepherds in ragged gaiters and square little men from the noun
 tains of Wales who speak a queer out
 landish lingo.
 These attendants hark back to the days when shepherds lived with their flocks and herdsmen with their cattle so much that they grew to look like them. The strong bond still remains, they never leave their charges during the whole week of the show, eating their food from earthen pots and sleep ing on the straw at the pen heads each night.
 The cattle are ranged in two lines down the center of the gaunt, unheated hall. They stand on sparse straw Ht- ters tethered by rope halters to un- painted iron railings.
 There are many royal entries The King brides himself, his cattle from Sandringham and Scotland and his Windsor sheep. But this year he failed to capture cup, though one of his Highland sters and a Swear -old Short horn heifer were awarded first prizes.
 The Highland cattle were far and away the most picturesque in the show Around the pen of the cup winner COT hOi, SplGHuIu DedSl, SGuip-
 tors and artists and photographers
 were so thick that cattlemen could hardly bet look in. This steer. the only one in his class. came from Loch- dhu, in Scotland. @ thoroughbred weighing 20S7 pounds, with horns span ming five feet. In color the pure High lands are a sandy red with long shaggy coats and small heads.
 The pure bred Shorthorns drew the biggest crowds. In this class the King | got first prize for his heifer. "Calomel | which weighed 150S pounds, 2 years ' months f weeks and 1 day old, sire Nathan Boxer, dam Congalton Calyce 1T
 The Herefords. Aberdeen-Angu and Galloways were less popular. There were always crowds around the Red Polls and the small Welsh exhibits
 Two steers under ? years owned by MT R. M. Greaves of Wern, Portmadoc Wales, were magnificent specimens of Welsh cattle. One, "Penllyn French. sire Wern Ordnance, dam Pellyn Cly- sig, weighed 11S9, and 'Werth Tom a yearling. Sire Wern Optimist, dam Wern Ivy, weighed 1153.
 The sheep were revelations to Amer ican eyes. over here they tint their shop sheep delicate salmon or lin- gerie pink. On them is lavished all the personal attention and boudoir devices denied to the cattle. The breeds which seem the most famous for wool are the Cheviot. the Levons, the Scotch and the Welsh mountain, and for mutton the Southdowns. Kentish and Shrop- shires. A pen of three fat wether lambs born in 1919. bred in Camb ridge shire, weighed 396 pounds.