e
producers of the meat producing breeds of stock as well as to the
consumers, are too apparent to require discussion.

The rules and methods adopted by the board for conducting this show
seems to need but little change--some slight modifications of the
requirements of the premium list will be proposed when that subject
shall come up for consideration, but beyond these there is but one
subject which I regard as of sufficient importance to demand a
suggestion from me at this time. I refer to the number of and division
of duties among the awarding committees.

The method of selecting judges seems to me all right and there was much
less difficulty in securing their attendance than at the fair. A few did
not respond, but their places were filled satisfactorily in most cases.
The wisdom of the appointment of your committee to decide upon the age
of all animals on exhibition, prior to the commencement of the work of
the judges and entirely independent of any suggestion or wish on the
part of exhibitors, was practically demonstrated so that there is
probably now no desire to discontinue it. In this case their discussions
corroborated and established the statements and good faith of the
exhibitors themselves in every instance except one, in which one the
result was unimportant.

The special feature to which I desire to call your attention may perhaps
be best understood if I express my own views in regard to it.

At present it is the practice for one committee of judges to make the
awards on the animals of each breed in their several rings of yearlings,
two-year-olds, and three-year-olds. After that has been done it is the
practice for another committee to select the sweepstakes animals from
among all the entries of all ages of that breed without regard to the
prizes which the former committee may have awarded.

Now it not infrequently happens, and is always liable to occur, that the
latter committee selects as the best animal of any age one which the
former committee did not deem worthy of any prize at all or at least not
a first prize, when judged by them in competition with these of its own
age only. Evidently there is a mistake somewhere. Both decisions can not
be correct. Both committees, we are bound to assume are equally honest,
disinterested, and competent, because the members of both committees
considered in making up a decision such discrepancy of judgment and the
system which renders it possible may be almost exc