The Timaru Herald. FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 1921. Back to the Plough.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 170576, 5 August 1921, Page 6

The Timaru Herald. FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 1921. Back to the Plough.

It is good to get back . to mother mirth again; good to feel once more the beauty of simple things; good to smell i'reslilurned soil, to see horses steaming m tlie winter air, and men, shoulder;; squared and muscles braced, competing with one another m the oldest art in the Avorid. Tor to all intents and purposes agriculturb is the mother of ail arts and of the best in our civilisation. The hunter and the fisherman no doubt came first; perhaps also the herdsman. But mi ad remained stationary and stagnant. Then the tiller of the soif appeared, and progress had really begun. Primitive man hunted and fished for generations, and continued savage. He threw seed in the ground, and of necessity then thought of a permanent dwelling, and of conveniences and beautifications for that i dwelling, and gradually, by the

mere fact of having' to look ahead and wait, advanced to luanutacturc and culture. And just as there was beau y in yesterday’s function at A ashdyjie, so tnere was social suggestiveness. It was pointed o l ‘t by Mi' J. Craig'ie, M.l’., that Cmemnatus was called from lus plough—a very primitive plough, too —to become Dictator, of the Roman Republic. Rut it i s n °t necessary to go back dIUO years to find a famous ploughman. There is one to-day representing JSew Zealand in London. Half a centurv ago, or a little less, there was a "youth ploughing at Longlieaeh whose name was William I'erguson Massey. And to-day he is among the Empire’s big' half dozen. Without wealth or influence or friends .lie has converted the lessons of the lonely furrow into the ripe sagacity of statecraft; and it is interesting here to note that the locality seems to breed plough-masters still. Several of those present yesterday came, if not actually lronr Long'beacli, from places suggestively close to it. Anyhow, it is stimulating to think that /for six-and-a-half hours one thousand people were able, without weariness, to stand watching men plough. There is nothing radically wrong with a community that can take pleasure, and exhibit pride, in the ancient art of husbandly. The first ploughman no one knows; but it is worth recording that the last, by whom we mean the best, speaks English. While it is a curious fact that ploughs showed little mechanical progress for thousands of years—it we except some' substantial improvements by the Romans the only first-class designs to-day are British or American. And among the British not the least noteworthy are the product of the overseas dominions, among whom, in this respect, Hew Zealand is last but not least. Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargill —let Auckland not rage make more ploughs, and better ploughs, than any other towns you may compare with them in the Southern Hemisphere. It is certain, too, though it is not for Canterbury to say it, that it is the agricultural communities everywhere which keep the world from mental and moral bankruptcy. Follow a big man back a little and you will discover, usually within three generations, an ancestor tilling the •oil.