LONG BUSH.

Southland Times, Issue 1587, 4 June 1872, Page 2 (Supplement)

LONG BUSH.

(from oue owisr correspondent.) The annual meeting of the Long Bush Ploughing Association waa.held in the schoolroom on the evening of Tuesday, 21st, Mr James M'Kercher in the chair, The Secretary read the report of the transactions for the past year, which was 1 approved of. and a vote of thanks .pn'saftd to the retiring committee. A. committee for the current year was then elected, i consistingof Messrs G-. Dawson, Mitchell, Barclay, J. M'Kay, Eeidie, M'Phee, E. Hamilton, J. M'Kercher, and A. Boss, Honorary Secretary and Treasurer. Some conversation took place in regard to a revision of the rules of the association, but ultimately it was deemed expedient to continue unchanged those of the past year. The ploughing match was fixed to take place in a paddock belonging to Mr James M'Kay, on the 14th of June next, and it was resolved to have a dinner and ball in the large and commodious barn now nearly in a state of completion on the same farm. It is hoped that the clerk of the weather will be propitious, so that a goodly number of the youth and veterans in the ancient art may muster in the field, j and as " Brethren in art and rivals in renown" that they will compete in peace and harmony for the honor and reward i proffered to those who excel in guiding I and " speeding the plough." The roads here are in a state which baffles all description. It is harrowing to the feelings of every "friend of humanity" to see horses dragging along a heavily laden dray through a perfect ocean of mud. Every minute you expect that the horses will disappear altogether ' in the quagmire, or that the dray swaying from side to side will be capsized, with all its contents. It is disgraceful to the Government to allow a road so very important as this, and on which there is more traffic than on any other in Southland, to be in such a state of utter wreck arid ruin. The penny wise and pound foolish policy of our legislators is the most expensive in the end. Had the; road been properly attended to during summer, it might now have beets in a condition alike safe for the lives of men and horses, and fit for the transport of the produce and manufacture of the district. ! On Wednesday afternoon a report was i spread abroad that an old man who has been employed for some time in cutting firewood for one of the settlers, was missing, under rather suspicious circumstances. Search was made in every direction without any trace of him being discovered. The young lads at the school i were dispersed in the bush in every j direction, and came back without success, j A short time afterwards a dray stopped j at the smithy, and lo ! there was the missing man all alive and kicking.. He had, it appears, hurt : his f00t,,- and had gone to Invercargill for surgical aid. The children of course missed the promised reward, but their services were appropriately and handsomely acknowledged by the parties interested.