SUBSIDISING COUNTRY SHOWS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3115, 26 November 1913, Page 14

SUBSIDISING COUNTRY SHOWS.

For the next two months exhibitors all over the country will be kept buey with the various district and metropolitan shows, which are very valuable institutions, and deserve recognition from the State. They do much to guide breeders to a just estimate of their own stock and that of others; and, when properly timed, the country shows act as feeders for the metropolitan show. They clear the eyesight of those breeders amenable to conviction, and stimulate an interest in more classes than one, thus tending to improve feeding and greater care in breeding. This has a marked influence for good on the stock of the Dominion. There is only one ring in countn’- shows, and anyone interested has time to study all that is going on. In asorne districts competition is keen in one particular class of stock, and great rivalry exists between the leading breeders. Local shows do much to foster that healthy rivalry—one effect of which is the determination to import

something better than is possessed at present. This usually results in securing for the district the use of high-priced animals. Every superior animal brought into the country may prove a mine of wealth to the owner, but is also a public gain. Were it not for the shows tew of them would be imported. There need be no doubt that well-organised country shows are powerful levers for good in improving the stock of the country. They also afford a pleasurable day's outing of the right kind to country people and their families, and to visitors, who in some cases travel long distances to examine noted animals and their progeny and to witness the best products of the year. The effect of the emulation which they engender filters throughout the Dominion to "such an extent in maintaining and uplifting, the character of the stock generally that the State would he perfectly justified in subsidising them. This would be money judiciously spent. No district subscribes liberally enough to run its own show. The various committees go round with their subscription lists and tax merchants, tradesmen, and others, who do not care to refuse a subscription to farmers who deal with them. Most of the subscribers take no further interest in the annual meetings. This is not a desirable basis to work on. The country receives some of the benefit accruing from these shows, as well as from larger ones, and should pay for it to the extent of subsidising local subscriptions. The point is one which might be profitably considered by the new Board of Agriculture. The shows vary in size and importance, and this suggests classification, which should not prove very difficult. Some equitable basis to arrive at the relative importance of each society could easily be propounded. Any subsidies given should go to breeders who own and exhibit their own stock, and be earmarked in such a way that professional exhibitors, who go the round of the shows with two or three hacks or hunters, which they sandwich into half a dozen classes, and usually lift the prizemoney, would not participate. Such exhibitors bring some “ life ” into the showring and widen put its interest, but the certainty almost of securing the ordinary class prize should be sufficient reward for them. ,