Farm Sale was attended by 750 bidders and visitors. “The women serving lunch worked the hardest!” The bulls averaged $696.00 and the females averaged $514.00 which was phenomenally successful. The year prior at the 1952 Toronto Royal, Primrose Hereford Farm won the Premier Exhibitor banner, along with Junior and Reserve Junior Champion Bulls, the Get of Sire and the Pair of Bulls. In another Bradley article from 1957, Primrose Farm was judged Supreme Champion of the Winter Fair in Brandon winning over Powell’s Shorthorn and McRae’s Angus. It is interesting to note that the bulls were evaluated by a panel of five judges, like a system used fifty years later at the RBC Supreme.
Their two primary shows were the Manitoba Winter Fair and the Toronto Royal. Although Brandon was a short haul, going to the Royal was a great ordeal and every young man’s dream. In those days, cattle were transported by train. The trip would usually take five to six days from Brandon to Toronto. The rail car would be decked with feed and tack on top and the cattle were bedded below. The crew slept with the cattle. The wives would bake and cook supplies for the men, but other supplies were purchased at train stops. Dirt and smoke covered near everything… cattle, feed, water and men. Cards were the entertainment of the day, mostly games of chance, it has been rumored that sometimes cattle changed ownership
before they returned home. For those who showed cattle at the Royal and arrived by train, it was a vacation and if those rail cars had ears… what tales they could tell. Brent Stewart made his first trip to the Toronto Royal Winter Fair at the age of nine years. Although he was extremely excited about the train ride, his mother said he would miss too much school, so he went by air. Since that day, he has made twenty-three trips with cattle and later a few judging. Bob and Brent have exhibited many steers over their history… carloads which comprised of ten head, or pens of five and single bred steers. Brent recalls, “The carloads were the most work and the most enjoyable to win, we were lucky to win it a few times.” He goes on to say, “I remember all the steers had to go through a culling committee. It was done after chores and there were no tie-outs in those days. My dad and several other guys were in the feed alley. (I did not know what they were doing at that time!) It was then my Dad told me I should meet this guy. He said he was one of the best steer jocks I would ever meet, his name was George Earley… we have had a lifelong friendship!” Stewart Cattle Co. is a direct descendant of Primrose Hereford Farm. The leadership and guidance of Brent’s father, Bob, and grandfather, Watson Dunn, established the backbone of how Stewart Cattle Co. was developed. Brent owned his own breeding stock at the age of nine years and had a
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