THE PRIZE BULL ‘LEO.’

Lyttelton Times, Volume LI, Issue 5575, 4 January 1879, Page 5

THE PRIZE BULL ‘LEO.’

It will be- remembered that at the hut Agricultural Show Mr Jno. Qrigg protested against the prize being awarded to Mr John Beans’ ‘ Leo,’ in Class 3, “ 801 l calred since July 1, 1876.” At the time the Protest Committee resolved —“That the hull be examined by a competent person, and his opinion taken; and further that before the prize is awarded the breeder’s certificate be received from Melbourne.” At yesterday’s meeting of the A. and P. Association the opinion of Mr Hill, Veterinary Surgeon, and the breeder’s certificate were read- Mr Hill’s opinion was that the bull was several months over age, and the breeder’s certificate, which was in the form of a statutory declaration, duly signed before a J.P., was to the effect that Leo was calved on July 1.1876. Accompanying the declaration were the following letters addressed to Messrs Dongherty and Co., the well-known Melbourne cattle salesmen. The emphatic language used provoked much mirth in the meeting notwithstanding the somewhat disrespectful terms employed: “Arundel, Dec. 7,1878, “Messrs Dougherty and Co., “ Gentlemen, —I send you herewith & statutory declaration made by me yesterday before the Hon. Sobert Bamsay regarding tb» exact age of ‘ Leo,' the bull sent by you from my herd in October last to Hew Zealand; and will now wait with considerable cariosity to see that {i.e. declaration) whites will now emanate from the malcontents, whoever these may be; for the persona who are ignorant enough, er audacious enough, to say they can tell the exact age of a cattle beast from its state of dentition, , must be capable of raying, I fear, if not of swearing anything. Do these men not know that the highest professional authorities in England have been obliged to 1 cave in,’ when in a disqualifying act of the nature of the one in hand, they were proved by the oath of the most competent witnesses to be one fourth of the age in dispute out of their calculations, in the case of animals too under two years old? And are our New Zealand folks greater authorities in these matters than men of European fame at home? I imagine not, and in good faith I now invite the most confident of them to come hither, and if they tell the exact age of any beast of mine from the state , of its teeth, 1 will make them a ? resent of that beast. General Qourke, at 8 months old, has his front teeth complete, while Achilles Booth, at 29 months old, is now only getting his front teeth. In fact I cannot ascertain the exact age of a cattle beast by the state of its teeth, and in all my experience 1 never saw the man who could. Visitors to this farm we often as . much as eight or nine months wrong in Judging the amt of an animal by its teeth, when such animal, too, is really not more than two years old, Yonatt, by the way, knew nothing, and wrote nothing, about horned cattle. He simply edited a book thereanent, that other and interested parties compiled for him. But in reference to the present matter, it is worthy of note that the parties in Australia who have been said to mutter some suspicion, on certain occasions, that my beasts (on account of their superior furnishing, I suppose) were above the age represented, were the very parties themselves, when disposing of their own stock, who gave some of their beasts false pedigrees from beginning to end. I would faiu hope that the New Zealand malcontents are not capable of such conduct as that; still, under the present circumstances, I cannot well repel the intrusion of the observation of the poet—- “ Suspicion haunts the guiltjr mind.”

“ One thing is certain, i.e. t that if Leo had been inferior to the other beasts on the ground, we should have heard no complaint about his overgrown teeth or three-year-old character. * * * Louisa brought her Jirst calf, Leo, on July 1, 1576. Leo sucked his dam in the pastures until he was eight or nine months old, as all my calves do, when he was taken in to the sheds, and fed, like the rest of the bull stirks of the same age, on meadow hay green grass (when to be had) boiled peas, dried up with bran, and a morsel of oil cake occasionally. He was always a small bull among mine, probably from his being the first calf of a heifer, but as I brood for beef, and not for offal, ho was like all the beasts bred from this blood, a right good weigher. He was never one moment out of sorts here; nor was he ever known to cough or slaver. Gentlemen, if you will kindly Forward this note to your correspondents, it may afford them some satisfaction to learn from it how Leo was reared here in his calf-hood. I would expect him with ordinary care to last a long time. " Yours very truly, “ KOBBBT M'DOPOXtI."

The following is from Mr M'Dougall’s overseer for 10 years, Mr Donald Forbes “1 am informed by Mr M'Dougall that some envious boobies* in New Zealand are asserting that the little bull Leo, you sent over in Oct, last, is older than he was represented to be, but 1 Can toll all about that.

. . . Louisa fetched the roan bull calf Leo aforesaid, on July 1,1878, and if my oath is required in affirmation of the matter I can testify to the truth of all I say. lam always telling Mr M'Dougall that envious boobies often suspect our beasts to be older than they really are because our beasts are so muscular and so well furnished with natural flesh. If Mr M'Dougall would only breed beasts from inferior blood, with skinny nocks, boro shoulders, hollow armpits, swinging paunches, legs like wooden bed posts, flat and corrugated riba and black noses, sunken eyes and sour countenances, then his three-year-olds would pass as two-year-olds, but these rumbling and leaky churning machines are fearful consumers of food, ana ,bad; ns they are during their lives they arc still more ufipfo£cabl6 at their death unless that event should take place when tripe is greatly appreciated.”