CHAMPION PLOUGHING MATCH.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 18, 29 July 1893, Page 9

CHAMPION PLOUGHING MATCH.

The trysting place for this year’s match, which took place on Wednesday, was Mr Herman’s farm, near Wallacetown Junction. The weather was neither very good nor very bad, several showers falling during the day. This, coupled with the football match in town, no doubt told against the attendance. Nevertheless between 600 and 700 people, including representatives from all parts of the district, put in an appeorance, and followed with unflagging interest the fortunes of the score of competitors who struggled for supremacy, thirteen of whom entered in the champion class. Among the onlookers were some very competent critics, and they were fain to admit that the work done was, taken all round, exceedingly good. The single-judge system was adopted on this occasion, Mr McConnachie, of the Taieri, boing the official adjudicator of the merits of the ploughmen. The arrangements, both for the ploughing and the incidental events, such as gorse-cutting, were carefully carried out, and prominent among the officials was that man dear to the heart of the reporter, Mr J. A. Mitchell, the secretary, whose running commentary as he read out the prize list furnished a good deal of the fun of the day. The winner of champion honours turned up in Mr D. McFarlane, who handled a Reid and Gray plough, while Mr W. A. Gray was first in Class B, and Mr D. McCalluxn in Class C.

The labours of the day were succeeded by a welcome addendum in the shape of a dinner in the Prince of Wales Hotel, where Host Potter had a capital repast in readiness for his seventy guests. The President,Mr C. Gray, occupied the chair, and a very pleasant evening was spent by the company, speech and song serving to make time fly till midnight, when the ever-green Auld Lang Syne and the National Anthem brought the proceedings to a close.