The Press Thursday, November 13, 1930. The Show.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20084, 13 November 1930, Page 10

The Press Thursday, November 13, 1930. The Show.

It has not often been so important as it is this year that the Metropolitan Show should be well attended. There is the fact, first, that a big attendance will have a heartening effect, directly and indirectly, on everybody who enters the grounds. It is stimulating to merge with an eager crowd in any circumstances, and even when Show crowds shrink in size thoy are never listless or dull. It is impossible to be dull, or even to feel depressed, when the town i 3 shaking hands with the country and the country with the town, on a field dotted with two thousand champion animals neighing, bleating, and bellow ing defiance to bad times. But it is not merely the psychology of confidence that has now to be considered. If the Show did no more than restore confld ence for a day or two it would still be worth while, but its real function is to restore prosperity. It is an indication of what can be done by selection, by industry, by science, by observation, by experiment and patient application lo achieve better results for the same outlay. If there were no Shows anywhere there would be no standards anywhere, and although there might stil! be good animals here and there, the. average grade would be the grade of those primitive places where breedu>>r is always downwards instead of upwards. It is safe to say that if no Show had ever been held in Canterbury the sheep and cattle would be ju-it sixty-six years behind their present level; and the horses not much better They are as good as they are—and in some cases that is as good as anything in the world—only because one year's best has been the next year's goal, and I before long the general standard. Tt is extremely gratifying therefore that ; I the nuiriber of entries received this year in all sections is greater than it has ever been before, that there is omv one class below strength in sheep and one in cattle, and that horses show a quite phenomenal increase. It wt!' disappoint most people to see military horses disappearing, but .that is not through any default on the part of breeders, or any lack of interest on the part of the Association. The Association deserves the warmest praise for getting such results in such a season, and it is perhaps a sign of the times that there are to be poultry exhibits this year, and a very great increase in the number of "miscellaneous" entries. Even if this does not mean that the farmer is no longer ignoring fowls as a possible source of revenue, it is pleasant to see the farmyard so fully represented. Finally, there is the very interesting fact that the ..entries of stock of all kinds, as well as of farm machinery, come from the whole of the South Island. There are so many reasons why Canterbury should have the Dominion's best farmers that interesting to see the rest of the Island anxious to achieve Canterbury distinctions.