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Front page President Report Secretary Report Fall Conference Winning Artwork Wooly Bee Farm Traveling with Elaine Classifieds _____________________________________________________________________________ Traveling With Elaine submitted by Elaine Shirley I
recently returned from a trip I have wanted to take ever since I saw the calendars called “Beasts and
their keepers” and the book “Good Breeding”. Both are beautiful photo essays of livestock and their
owners by photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand who also produced “Earth from above” another photography
book. The photos were taken at several agricultural shows including the Royal Show in England, La
Rural in Buenos Aires, Argentine and the Salon International De L’Agriculture in Paris, France. That
has intrigued me for many years, a livestock show in Paris?
So this year I decided to go, along with a huge number of French visitors, the lines to get in were incredibly long! The Agriculture show was at a convention center on the Paris Metro with 5 huge buildings. The largest building was for cattle, sheep, goats and pigs with 4 show rings in it. The cattle far out numbered all the other livestock. I am not sure why, perhaps there are more important shows for sheep, etc at other places or perhaps they concentrate on cattle one year, sheep the next, pigs the following etc. The sheep that I saw were about 25 pens, each with a different breed of sheep several French breeds and a good representation of English breeds although no Leicesters, Cotswolds or Lincolns. There was a flock of milk sheep and a portable milking parlor and milking was demonstrated for the public during the day. The sheep show ring had lots of forums scheduled about different breeds, cheese and sheep dogs but they were in French which did me no good. There seems to have been several parades of sheep breeds as well. There was also “Young Shepherds Olympiads” which was the day before I arrived, that I think would have understood without the language barrier.
In the center of the main livestock building was a huge cooler where the carcass classes were hung and one of the days I visited was the day of the butchers. The butchers are virtually all men; there was a major upheaval two or three years ago when the first female made it into the ranks. They were doing “fancywork” on the meat, there were cuts made to look like birds, variety meats artfully displayed on platters and some amazing knife work and lots of fancy paper collars on exposed bones. One building was all French cheese with representatives of all the major regions and their cheese. This building was really for people from the food industry but as an international visitor I could get in. As far as I could tell these were all mass produced cheeses, no artisan cheeses from individual farms. Another building was horses, ponies and asses, also dogs, cats, rabbits, poultry, canaries and fish. The Poitou was there which is an amazing looking breed of ass from France that grows tremendously long hair that falls in ropes down its body. The breed has been used for the production of mules for hundreds of years and is now very endangered. The rural life building was devoted to builders, small farm equipment, wood stoves, wind power, water purifiers etc. There were also artisans, a blacksmith and willow workers with baskets, furniture and garden gazebos made of willow shoots. There was a garden and crop building which included apple producers, beer brewers and the association of French agricultural museums. The last building was the food from all the regions of France. Aisle after aisle of ham, cheese, wine with some oysters, fish and goose liver thrown in for good measure. I went to the show several days, I regret I speak no French so I couldn’t speak to some folks and I’m sure I didn’t get some of the displays. I never saw any fleece judging or anyone fitting their animals for show. I think we do a lot more washing, combing, fluffing, blueing, clipping and prepping animals then almost anyone else. I did see animals with geometric patterns combed into their coats and the draft horses had ribbons and straw braided into their tails and manes which looked cool. There was no large machinery there but apparently there just is no room for it and there big machine shows elsewhere. I did a lot of typical tourist things since it was my first trip to Paris but it was great to walk into that convention center and smell livestock. Kind of like the time I was in New York City when the rodeo was in Madison Square Garden, that smell is a whiff of home. Maybe Buenos Aires will have to be next….
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©2003-2007 Leicester Longwool Sheep Breeders Association webmaster@leicesterlongwool.org updated 03 March 2007 |
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The cattle were beef and
dairy breeds and a good portion of the breeds that looked dual purpose. There were some breeds that are
very regional and not seen outside of France. The fighting cows of Switzerland were there, but that is
another story. A good percentage of the cattle still had their horns which I think looks great. There
were bull classes and it was a very impressive sight to see these MASSIVE animals walking through the
crowd on the way to the show ring.