EAST TAIERI PLOUGHING MATCH.

Otago Witness, Issue 1601, 29 July 1882, Page 13

EAST TAIERI PLOUGHING MATCH.

TO TUB EDITOR.

Sm,— l wish to stato, through the columns of your valuable paper, a few facts in connection with th« abovo ploughing 1 match. Beforo the competitors drew their tickets, the secretary was Instructed by the Committee of Management to read the' rules, and also to inform them that those rules' were to be strictly adhered to. The penalty for breaking any ono of the rules was that the peg of the offender should ba drawn. It will be needless for me to write the rules in full. I will merely name one or to, and then I will show that there wag n6t one of the prizetakers in class A, swing-ploughs, who did not break the rules. One of the rules states most plainly that there was to be no assistance or help given after the first round. Another of the rules stated that the width of furrow was to be- not lees than seven inchos. Now I can tta,t'e, without ; the least fear of contradiction, that there was not' ono of the prizetakors who did not break those two rules. Toey had men setting their coulters and running from one end of the field to the other, and I noticed that some of them had their horses led for them for the last two rounds. N >w, Air Editor, do you consider that ia fair, when there aro competitors on the ground from a distance who have not got friends to assist them like that— who have to set their own plough and also their poles. 1 feel quite confident that those men who got so much help, if they were left to thetiuelve3, would not be in the prize-list at all. Ido not altogether blame the competitors, but I do blame the Committee for the onesided manner in which they have' acted. I can quite understand how they allowed the help to those men ; they were servants- of somo of the Committac. I would not have written this, but the Derby ploughing match v coming off soon, and I wish to utter my protest against the Btyle of judging that was adopted at the above-mentioned match. First, several of the judges— at least four out of .the seven— were guiding some of the competitors till midday ; and furthermore, I cannot see thatjit is right for the Committee to put men on to judije who cannot plough, or never had a man who could plough, as was the cane that day ; and furthermore they will stop all outside competition by their one-sidsd way of carrying out their rules. Being a ploughman, I feel very much when I see men coining from a groat distance and not getting fair pay — men who can take up their ploughs and go to any part of New Zealand and JplOHgh without help of any kind, anil then carry everything before them. I trust that if the Committee wish to mak«> their ploughing match a success, they will do the work that is laid out for them to do, and not glirink from it. I do not write this lftttor from any bU»er feelings of revoneo, but merely to show the Committee that they wero far from pleasing tho majority.— l am, &c.,

PliOuaiisuN.

' July 24th.