The Perrysburg Journal

HOW SMITH'S BULL WON THE PREMIUM.
We commend this to all who attend State and County Fairs. It is from the Rural New Yorker, and was first published in that journal a year ago, and it is now republished in the Rural, for the benefit of officers who fill vacancies in committees.
Col. Moore: Some years ago I got acquainted with one of your contributors who edited the Wool Grower, and he used to put me in print. I must say my vanity was flattered by seeing my name printed in the paper, with some things I said, and some I didn't say, and we've kept the papers ever since. After all, everybody likes a little fame, but some are satisfied with a smaller amount than others. Well, I have not the editor any more to set me out, so I have been thinking I would just try and see if you would not put me in the Rural on my own hook--especially as I want to tell you all about my going to the State Fair, at Buffalo, the other day.
CONCLUDES TO GO.
As it was not so far off but what we could go with our team, mother and I concluded we would hitch up and have a week to see the sights and some cousins we had not seen for a long time. Mother (that's wife you know,) thought we ought to take something to the Fair. I told her to take a tub of butter, but she didn't think it was good enough, but thought I might take some of the stock. But I thought it would be a great bother. However, Sam was pretty strong in the faith that we could beat everybody on horses, and wanted to take old Nance. She's a right smart old beast, is that old mare, you may depend.
TAKES THE MARE.
Well, we packed off Sam, for I was willing to give the boy a holiday. It does the boys great good to attend these kinds of fairs, I do believe, after seeing all I saw there. We got safely to town on Monday night, and Tuesday I went up to the Fair grounds to see what was going on. I got in and hunted up Sam, and found he'd got the mare entered, and had got his card on her head, and a good stall, and all things comfortable. The animal arrangements were first-rate generally, and during all the time of the Fair the supply of fodder was good. I think that Major Patrick, who was everybody in managing things, & trump sort of a man.
HEARS SOMETHING.
As I was standing up near the business office in the crowd, I heard a couple of men talking about premiums. One said to the other: "Are you an exhibitor?" "Yes." "So am I, and we had better look to the Committees." "Why so?" "You see the Committees are never all full, and if you are on hand at the big tent when they are called; it is easy to slip in a friend, which is a mighty nice thing sometimes." "Well I am showing a patent for making cowcumbers, and if you can get the premium it will make my fortune." "And I am showing a new kind of bob-tailed hens, and a premium won't set me back." "Well, you get me on your committee, and I will name you for mine." "All right; go in to win when you can."
Thinks I, perhaps if that's the way the thing leans, I may as well take care of myself as any one else. Everybody for himself seems to be the rule on these occasions. So off I streaked to the cattle pens to find Smith who is my neighbor, you know. Smith is in the patent bull line. (Mr. P. evidently means "improved.") Says I, "Smith, you're showing bulls, and I am showing old Nance, and I guess if merit counts we can win. And that's the talk here on paper. Then I told him what I'd heard about the committee. "Is that so?" "Exactly." "Well, I think old Nance is the best mare in the yard." "And you've got the best bull on the ground."
Then I told him that we must be up at the tent in time.
Well, sure enough, when the committees were made up, I was on Smith's bull committee, and he was on the mare committee.
THE COMMITTEE GOES OUT.
The head man took the book, as he had the things in it, and were all introduced to each other, and went down to look at the bulls. We were on the red bulls. So we went along and looked at them, and I didn't say much till we came to Smith's bull, and I looked at him pretty carefully, pulled his tail, punched my fingers into his ribs, and went through the motions, as I had seen the others do. Says I, "thar's a bull that looks like it."
Smith had combed him all over with a fine-toothed comb, and brushed him with a hair brush, and he did look slick, for he was just as fat as a hog. And from all I saw, I think fat at Fairs, like what the lawyer said about charity, covers a multitude of sins.
GETS THE HORNS POKED AT HIM.
Just as I said that, the fellow who had a bull in the next stall comes up to me pretty fierce, and says he: "What do you know about bulls?" "Well," says I, "I think I know what they are used for in my section." "May be," says he, "you are on the committee?" "I have the honor," says I. "But," says he, "that bull haint got any pedigree." "Well," says I, "he had a father and a mother, didn't he?" "Oh! yas, but then nobody knows who they were." "Well, then nobody knows but they were just as likely as your bull's parents. "But, sir, look at my bull's pedigree. There it is, sir. Got by imported Short-tail, out of Skim-milk, by Thunder," etc., and he showed a string of names as long as your arm. "Well," says I to the committee, "are we to judge the pedigree or the animal?" Then, said I to the fellow, "will your bull get better stock than this?" "Of course he will, for he's got a pedigree, and that bull hasn't." "Well," says I, "your bull has got somebody to brag for him, and the other hasn't that's certain." And that sort o' knocked him. "But," says I, "I've known who felt grand over their pedigree, and I have seen a heap of people who couldn't go further back than their father and mother that banged them all to pieces for smartness. Handsome is that handsome does," says I, "and as the hymn-book says a man's a man for all that. Pedigree go to grass, I go in for the animal."
SMITH'S BULL WINS.
When we got through and looked at our marks, the other two had Smith's bull second. I had him first. So we talked it over, and finally, as they did not care much about it, they altered the figures, and gave Smith the first premium, which I think was right.
AND THE OLD MARE.
Smith had a great time over old Nance. It turned out that each of the other two committee-men had friends whose mares were to be judged, and they pretty soon picked out their favorites. So he kept still and let them talk, and they soon got into a quarrel, and then they appealed to Smith, and he kinder sided with one, but thought old Nance was the best mare, and finally, to keep the other from getting first, they sided with him, and he went in for both of theirs. Smith says he saw some queer things on that committee. You see we got our premiums, but you don't see, perhaps, Colonel, as well as I do, that it wants something more than merit to be sure of winning.
GETS IRREVERENT.
The State of New York is a great State, the biggest in the Union, and the New York State Agricultural Society is a great institution, but if there ain't some of the allfiredest big humbugs crawling around its Annual Fair, then I'm a tea-pot.
CONCLUDES.
I want to tell you a heap more, but I have used up so much paper, I fear you wont have patience to print my letter.