The question of so modifying our committee system as to avoid the embarrassment I have referred to and thus to secure a better deserved confidence in the justice of the awards is one I hope to hear discussed at this meeting as it has been probably at every meeting of our predecessors for the past thirty years. Possibly we are in the light of our own experience, with a different system at the Fat Stock Shows prepared to try something else at the fairs; but of this I do not feel certain. THE FAT STOCK SHOW. The remarks I have made in regard to the display at the fair and the great interest it excited apply with, if possible, still greater force to the Fat Stock Show. Your record shows all material facts in respect to numbers and quality of the stock on exhibition, and I need not enlarge. The importance of this enterprise, in its relation to the meat supply of the world, can hardly be over-stated, and its direct results to the 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.