Page:Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham.djvu/81

In addition to the Christmas Cattle Show, the Society commenced in March, 1869, a separate exhibition and sale of pure-bred shorthorns, more than 400 beasts of this class being sent every year. Indeed, the last show is said to have been the largest ever held in any country. The value of the medals, cups, and prizes awarded at these cattle shows averages nearly £2,400 per year, many of them being either subscribed for or given by local firms and gentlemen interested in the breeding or rearing of live stock. One of the principal of these prizes is the Elkington Challenge Cup, valued at 100 guineas, which after being won by various exhibitors during the past ten years, was secured at the last show by Mr. John Price, who had fulfilled the requirements of the donors by winning it three times. Messrs. Pilkington & Co. have most liberally given another cup of the same value. In 1876, for the first time since its establishment in 1839, the Royal Agricultural Society held its exhibi- tion here, the ground allotted for its use being seventy acres at the rear of Aston Hall, twenty-five acres being part of the Park itself. That it was most successful may be gathered from the fact that over 265,000 persons visited the show, which lasted from July 19th to 24th.

Poultry forms part of the Bingley Hall Exhibition, and numerically the largest portion thereof, as per the table of entries, which is well worth pre- serving also for showing when new classes of birds have been first penned:

Fanciers give wonderfully strange prices sometimes. Cochin China fowls had but lately been introduced, and were therefore "the rage" in 1851-2. At the Poultry Show in the latter year