Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Second part - VI. Agriculture and Cattle-Breeding - 2. Cattle-Rearing. By Captain V. Nauckhoff, Stockholm - Cattle - Prize-competitions of Cattle, by W. Flach, Chief Secretary, Depart, of Agriculture, Stockholm - Sheep
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566
VI. AGRICULTURE AND CATTLE-BREEDING OF SWEDEN.
attached to this fact at the sale of cattle, especially when these are purchased
for another person. An animal which has once taken a prize of money cannot,
true enough, gain another in the same class, but, until it has reached 10 years
of age, it can be exhibited at each competition in order to obtain a fresh
free-ticket. After the close of the competition, it is a custom that one of the jury
delivers a short lecture on it to the pnblic, giving advice and directions
concerning the feeding and the care of cattle, etc; a lecture which has proved of great
value, especially by the access which it offers at the place to living illustrations
of the lecture.
This short account of our Swedish system of prize-competitions shows ho*
an effort is made to benefit the small farmers and to excite their interest in an
improved system of breeding. Especially by means of the free-tickets and the
regulations concerning them successful efforts have been made to bring abont
co-operation between the large and small farmers of the country, in the one case
by trying to induce the former to procure good bulls, by means of offering them
greater advantages than can be obtained merely by the use of a good bull
for their own cows, and, in the second case, by taking such measures that the
small farmer can have the same advantages of a large-farm bull as the owner
of the animal, without it costing him a single farthing. But although the
advantages obtained by the use of the free-tickets are, consequently, not small,
experience has shown, however, that only about 60 % are presented to be
redeemed, a thing against which successful measures have been taken in many
Läns by the perforation of the free-ticket into two parts, of which the owner
of the cow keeps one — redeemed by the committee for a certain sum,
usually 1 krona — giving the other part to the owner of the bull, who
receives it as his share. A number of Agricultural Societies have also tried to
make it easier to procure good bulls by buying such animals and making them
over to interested persons, to be paid for usually by 5 yearly instalments, free of
interest. As the instalments in question are usually paid by means of free-tickets,
a valuable animal can, in this way, be obtained without any cash payment at alL
The annual increase in the number of animals exhibited is a speaking
witness of the lively interest with which these competitions are embraced. During
the last years of the decade 1881/90, when the competitions were confined to
only 13 Agricultural Societies, the number kept at about 10,000; whereas now,
there are exhibited, within twice the number of competition-districts, about fonr
times as many animals. (In 1901 there were 38,807 head exhibited). Of this
number about 75 % are approved of, on an average.
A complete view of the progress of cattle-breeding in Sweden in our
days is gained by a study of our Dairy-forming, which has now
become of such great importance in the country that we must give a
special and detailed description of it, to be found in the article on
page 571.
Sheep.
Sheep form one of the kinds of cattle in which Sweden is not
especially rich, as compared with the other countries of "Western’Europe.
While these countries have, on an average, 400 sheep for every thousand
of the population, Sweden reckons but 250, and, in comparison with
former times, this proportion in Sweden has greatly diminished, as
may be seen from Table 75, page 550.
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