AGRICULTURAL SHOWS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2934, 8 June 1910, Page 11

AGRICULTURAL SHOWS.

By a Travelling Australian.

"Yes," said a visitor to the agricultural show this week, "I have travelled about a bit in my time, and of shows I have seen a, few."

On being pressed to give an outline of his experiences in connection with agricultural shows, he became pleasantly reminiscent in a manner that showed the faculty of close observation of men and things. " It is more than half a century ago since I saw my first pastoral and agricultural show in Australia," said our traveller, " and that was soon after I landed jn Adelaide. It was, I thought, not a little creditable to the South Australians that, although the last tree-stumps were being dug out of the busiest part of Hindlev street—the principal thoroughfare in the city—the Adelaide Agricultural Society had then been in existence for some years, and its show was a very important annual event. I was at that time in a particularly appreciative mood as far as fresh farm and garden produce was concerned, for I had only recently landed from a • vessel that had taken over 100 days to plough the waters between the Port of London and Port Adelaide. Of course, in t.',ose days voyagers subsisted to a large extent on tinned foods, the contents of the harness cask, varied with the weekly slaughter of a sheep or a pig, plum 'duff,' and rice puddings innocent of eggs. The grapes and stone fruits were°cut of season at the time the show was held, but there was a very fine display of apples and pears, and there were stalls for the sale of these. In size these apples were as large, and looked quite as tempting, as those we have just been looking at in Dunedin, though the quality may not have been as good, though o-rown in the cool hills that environ the Adelaide plains. I was tempted to become a purchaser, although the price was Is per lb—quite an astounding figure to one who had been familiar with London apple stalls from which penny lots piled up like cannon balls in the round-shot days could be selected. Many years after I bought Tasmanian apples in the West End of London, prime in quality, evenly graded, and in the pink of perfection, for 4J;d-per lb, and in the early nineties paid as high as Is 6d per lb for much inferior apples in a West Australian goldfield town. Pomological temptations have always been as great to me as to our illustrious prototype, whose primitive tradition reaches as far as Adaim's first green breeches. He fell by their means, and a ribstone pippin, a russet, or a pearmain will go far to my undoing financially. But there is this justification for my fall : that an apple taken on an empty stomach Hoeth good like a medicine.,, But, coming back to the Adelaide show of 50 years a"o, I recall the unwonted attraction of x°London omnibus just landed, and looking resplendent in a fresh coat of varnish that did not altogether conceal the fact that it had seen service in the northern hemisphere. It was, however, a novelty that was as much appreciated and examined as Gill's monoplane and the motor cars and bicycles in this week's Dunedin show. The newspapers complimented the importer on his enterprise, and the 'bus was soon running on the Port road to replace the springcarts with horses driven tandem, that carried passengers for half a orown a head before the railway was open. there were plenty of very fine exhibits of a verv valuable nature at the show xn question that indicated the sure foundations on which the agricultural and pastoral industries were being laid. Mr George Fife 3ji°-as had already beigun the importation of "those pedigree cattle that have since made his name famous from one end ot •Australia to the other, and even as far afield as New Zealand and Argentina. The Fishers were doing the same good work in blood horses, and the Elders and davenports were bringing high-class merinos to .add value to South Australian fleeces. The hard wheats that had flourished on the Adelaide and Gawler plains had made the colony already famous as cereal producers, and there- were some remarkably fine samples on view, I remember ; but the colony that is now such a lance exporter of oereads did not then supply its own wants, and wheat cargoes were frequently coming in from California. The dairying industry was m its infancy. 'Double Rose Cork' occupied pride of place in the butter market, and Australian cheese was contemptuously dubbed ' colonial soap.' "It is a far cry from South Australia to North Queensland, from the early fifties to the late eighties, but the jump is worth taking when one is speaking at large on these exhibitions. The South Australian Agricultural Society has progressed amazingly since those early'days, lout I will venture to say that the Cairns annual show is much the same this year as it was a dozen years ago, when I visited it, for this obvious reason: In the one State the room for agricultural and pastoral expansion is almost unlimited, but in tropical North Queensland the productiveness of the soil lies in special directions. In spite of this the Cairns show is run on Western lines, and the results .are decidedly ludicrous. The show aground is charmingly situated three miles out of the town on'the Mareeba railway line, in an open patch cut out of such a tropical jungle as is only to be found where over lOOin of rain fall annually, accompanied by summer heat. There is a considerable area ring-fenced, and refreshment booths, made of bush poles covered with evergreens an d huge fern, fronds, supply entertainment that would not be regarded as necessary by your New Zealand prohibitionists You look in vain for cattle pens, sheep yards, pig. styes, and the like, I found one very creditable exhibit of Brisbane bacon and small goods, a few sets of -harness from the local saddlers', some Vrm implements, churns, sewing machines.

buggies 1 , carts, and etcetrae, including Chinese-groM-n bananas and pineapple*. One interesting local product was an exhibit of Cairns-made pickles made from mangoes, capsicums, and the tender shoots of bamboo. Dairy produce for show was quite out of the question, for butter is delivered to North Queensland housewives fit basins that are charged for in the oiland allowed for when returned empty. Prizes, I found, were offered for cattle, and on inquiring where the beasts were was directed to the bush at the back of the booths, where, in the dense tropical growth, I found one cow of no particular breed munching green bananas. She took first prizes in more classes than one! As a matter of fact the three days devoted to the Cairns show were for the benefit of horse owners. The entries were not numerous, but each horse in his turn played many parts. Every hoof on the ground was entered in the open hack class, any age or either sex. These paraded the ring under the eyes of the judges and the public, walking, trotting, or cantering. Then most of , the animals reappeared in single or double harness, or tandem. The same horses again competed for the prizes given for the best turn-outs. The people's day was the third, when the jumping contests were the chief attraction, the competitors, of course, being those animals and riders that had been ' witching the world with noble horsemanship ' on the two previous days. The hurdles were not bullfinchers, and there was not a log jump or stonewall to test nerve and horseflesh. But the climax was reached at the close of the day, when post entry races for prizes were run with men-o'-warsmen up. The show authorities always managed to make arrangements for the presence of one of two of his Majesty's gunboats to visit Cairns during show week, and to get liberty granted to as many of the crews as possible. Everybody knows Jack's love for getting aboard a saddle, and his general incapacity to 6tick there, consequently the laughter-provoking nature of the contests cam be imagined. There was no fixed programme, but as long as horseowners would provide mounts, and the liberty men would risk capsizing the fun continued, in the interests, of course, of improving the breed of horses and the advancement of agriculture! As long as Government subsidies are forthcoming the Cairns gala will no doubt continue. "I have seen the very fine agricultural shows in Melbourne, Ballarat, Sandhurst, and Sydney, and these are very good examples of useful institutions that might be copied with advantage, if I may be permitted to say so, by similar organisations in New Zealand. It seems to me that your Otago show lpses half its value, from an educational point of view, by the holding of two shows in the year instead of one. You cannot pretend to showlive stock under a roof, even with so fir "> a building as the Brydone Hall. "The; 1 , again, it hardly speaks well for the appreciation of rural industries to see the exhibit of the Agricultural Department eclipsing every other. Without that fine collection there would have been ijttle left of an educative value. I wondered after seeing the show whether it was necessary to carry on guessing competitions to induce people living in a country that has the heaviest average cereal yield per acre, and carries more sheej> per acre than any country in the world, to support and appreciate such shows. The bait bears an unpleasant similarity to the catchpenny devices of tradesmen who give bonus coupons to their customers instead of good value and honest weight for cash paid. I say this as an outsider,''but presume that the directors of the Dunedin Society know how to manage their finances better than I can tell them. They are, it is patent, very lucky in having a large area of rent-producing city property as an endowment."