THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1926. CARTERTON SHOW.

Wairarapa Age, 27 October 1926, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1926. CARTERTON SHOW.

Good entries and other portents suggest that the Carterton Show which opens to-day is likely to be as successful as that of any previous year. It is obviously of concern to the whole community that interest in this show and in others of the kind should be well maintained, and that they should be adequately supported. Apart from its social aspects, which are not unimportant, a well-organised agricultural show is of the utmost value to primary producers as an educational agency. If it ■were a more matter of competing for prizes in the live stock and other sections, interest would not easily be maintained, and support would be apt to die away. Everyone knows that exhibitors frequently spend much more in preparing and transporting their entries than they can hope to recover in even the most exceptional run of prizewinning.

The prominence that successful exhibitors gain in their industry is, of course, worth much more to them than the prizes they win, but a show like that which opens to-day is o*f value, above all in the facilities it affords for comparing notes and exchanging ideas. A well-organised show is a splendidly effective means of lifting up the standards of the farming industry generally. Apart from its competitions of the moment, it. sets before farmers standards to which they may work all the year round to their own advantage and that of the community.

There seems to be every likelihood that the established reputation of the Carterton Show will be well maintain-

ed this year. On the whole, entries arc heavy, and it seems likely that standards of quality in many instances will be high. Given good weather, it need not be doubted that the Wairarapa and East Coast P. and A. Society will be able to add notably to-day and tomorrow to the record of useful and helpful enterprise it has established in its forty-nine years’ of existence. AN INFORMATIVE ADDRESS. No one who heard it could help being impressed by the able and informative address delivered !n‘ Masterton yesterday by Mr. R. S. Forsyth, London manager of the New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board. Most producers, no doubt, are by this time alive to the fact that the establishment of the Meat Producers’ Board has already worked out with great advantage to the Dominion and its farmers, but it was open to any producer to learn a great deal from what Mr. Forsyth had to say yesterday. The strength and , weakness of this country’s position in its meat trade with the Mother Country has probably never been outlined more clearly than in Mr. Forsyth’s informative address. The total effect was encouraging. The London manager of the Meat Board was emphatic in stating that New Zealand holds a very strong position so far as its exports of mutton and lamb are concerned; although he made it clear, at the same time, that the producers of the Dominion must be prepared to face a growing intensity of competition. In some directions, notably where the export of pork is concerned, Mr Forsyth’s observations should impart a stimulus to new enterprise. On the other hand, he made out a cogent and apparently conclusive case in suggesting that New Zealand producers would be wasting their time in attempting to develop an export of chilled beef.

All that Mr. Forsyth had to say will be of great interest and value to producers and to others interested in the meat export trade. The Meat Producers’ Board js to be congratulated upon deciding as a matter ef policy to bring back its London manager at -intervals in order that he may get again into direct touch with producers. It is to be congratulated also on having found in Mr, Forsyth OH6 who has not only played a leading part in directing the undoubtedly valuable work that haS been done in Londod, but is admirably qualified to describe this work and its results to the producers of the Dominion.