A. & P. SHOWS.

Waipa Post, Volume V, Issue 208, 29 April 1913, Page 4

A. & P. SHOWS.

AND GOVERNMENT STOCK. Referring to the motion put forward at a recent meeting of the Manawatu A. and P. Association to the effect that it is not in the interests of the association to allow animals shown by the Government to compete with those shown by private breeders, Dr E. G. Lcvingc expressed the following opinions to the Weekly Press: — “I notice that a movement has been started at Palmerston North to stop the Government being allowed to compete with its stock

at A. and P. shows. It would be a grave mistake for A. and P. societies to be drawn into a course of action that would ultimately harm New Zealand as a whole. The movers in this agitation are interested persons because they are breeders themselves, and perhaps it is natural that they should resent being beaten. The arguments they put forward are that the Government has a practically unlimited sum at its disposal, it can pay such outside prices and import such superlatively good stock, tjrat it would absolutely sweep the board, and private breeders would become so discouraged that they would give up the business. It is not correct to say that the Government officers hold important advantages over the private breeder. The reverse is the truth. It has also been claimed that as the Gpvernment’s flocks and herds are only kept from an educational point of view, it is unnecessary and undesirable that they should be entered in

open competition. Supposing even that this might possibly apply to the stock from the Government farms, it does not apply to the stock at Government institutions, such as Sunnyside and Porirua, which are not under the control of the Agricultural Department, and are run on a strictly commercial basis. Competition is desirable from all points of view, for it brings Government and private breeder down to the one level of the judge’s standard of merit. Government officers have not unlimited money, and if they had money is not everything. The private breeder with the expert knowledge of a lifetime to back him up, is in a far better position to produce prize-winning animals than a man who had money and less knowledge. “ Some years ago, when the Sunnyside herd was doing very well in the show ring, an attempt was made by breeders of Ayrshires to get the stock prohibited, but I am glad to say that the Canterbury A. and P. Association stated definitely that it wanted the best stock procurable exhibited, never mind who the breeder was.

“Competition is the life and soul of stock breeding, and there never would be any real and rapid progress made unless every breeder was stimulated to exert his very best efforts to produce prize-winning stock by keen and open competition. I never paid more than £2O for any of the Ayrshires with which I started the Sunnyside herd, and though the Government had more expensive bulls later on, yet their services could not be procured by private breeders, so there was no advantage to the Sunnyside herd on that account. The only advantage an exhibitor from a Government institution could be said to have —and that was a small thing really —was that he had plenty of labour available to get the show animals ready for the ring. I am emphatic upon the great value of outside and open competition, and I practically subsidised several well-known Ayrshire breeders to come into the metropolitan show and compete with me, for there was no honour or glory to be won by a ‘walk-over.’ Sometimes these men beat me and sometimes I beat them, but the public and all concerned had the satisfaction of knowing that the prizes won had been gained in a fair field and the awards were subsequently all the more valuable.”