The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1917. THE A. AND P. SHOW.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 26 February 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1917. THE A. AND P. SHOW.

(With which is incorporated The Tub hapo Post and Waimarino News).

There is no annual local event half so important to the people of this town and territory as the Agricultural and Pastoral Show, which takes place on Wednesday. The farmers of this great and highly productive district are going to show to each other and the rest of New Zealand what their farms are best capable of producing, and the nature and quality of the stock they breed. It is indeed difficult to over-estimate the value of such exhibitions, if they are utilised for the main purpose for which they came into existence. Let us remember that farming interests and prices of produce in England were down to a starvation value, owing largely to importation froni a cheap market that lay just across the English Channel. Something had to be done, and the agricultural and pastoral show came, with what result we all now know. The Sovereign, Government, members of the Peers and Commons saw the undeniable increased value that given to land and its products, and they became the chief patrons of agricultural shows, giving prizes to be competed for and in every way encouraging’their institution all over the country. They went so far as to establish a Royal Agricultural and Pastoral Society, holding its exhibitions in one locality one year and in another the next, so that inducement, might, be given to all the nation’s farmers to benefit. It had the effect, of not only improving breeds of stock, raising the value of land, and causin K many other benefits to accrue to the farmer’s advantage, but it put a uniform and average value upon every product of proportionate average qualitjr - lf . in the Homeland, from the Sovereign to the smallest and most unpretentious farmer, these agricultural and pastoral shows were valued so highly, how incalculably more valuable must they be to a country like this, which draws its life-blood from that which comes from the land? We j '•'• vc c: -y to Cc:.:crg/.ruie that tic

land hereabout is worth more than our pioneers paid for it and. it gofs > progressively increasing in value. We think it cannot be denied that sheep from this territory are among the healthiest and best doers in New Zealand. It is already a fact that farmers from other districts prefer to buy in our saleyards and off our farms, as a result of the experience they already have. If our farmers will make special efforts to s-how, and that of their best, still greater benefits might accrue to them and to the whole district. Taihape is naturally situated and adapted for a stock centre, and the time is fast coming when this fact can no longer be kept in the background. When that time is forced upon us farmers will be somewhat surprised to find that a growing demand for their land is putting it up to its real value, a value that is fixed on what it can be made to produce. Call it unearned increment if we will, but it is nothing more nor less than what is a natural corollary of the experimenting and the proving work ot the men who work it. A badly-prospected claim, be it gold or anything else, will never benefit by unearned increment, but an intelligently worked, industrially prospected farm or gold-mine, unfolds quite a different narrative. What is termed unearned increment on farms is largely, and in most cases merely the proving of what land will do through the industry, enterprise, and intelligence of the farmer who works it. True, there are men called speculators who should be hounded out as leeches. They get possession of a piece of land and spend no more labour or money on it than the law compels; with the same instinct that leads flies to a dunghill they fasten on and wait till the honest industry of their neighbours puts a value on it that they are in no way entitled to. Despite this drawback, it cannot be denied that land values are the result of the proving given by farmers themselves. That there are drones among them rather helps to emphasise this truth than constitute evidence to the contrary. When it becomes obvious to the producer that he can produce in quality, and quantity unsurpassed in any other part of the,country, it is not wise to hide the discovery under the proverbial bushel. It is so obviously to his supreme benefit that he should proclaim it from the housetops of his annual agricultural and pastoral shows. The Rangitikei A and P. Show is this district’s real annual advertisement, the value of which cannot be over-estimated. There is land hereabout which should enable farmers to keep from Taihape shops butter made elsewhere, and they should be in a position to supply outside towns and districts, this will |Come with closer settlement. The volume of meat should enable ihe capacity of local freezing works to be trebled. Every animal, sold for freezing in other districts may result, pfcrhaps, in an infinitesimally higher price, but it is at the same time an unconscious effort to keep down the value of the seller’s land, and the general progress and prosperity of the whole territory. We cannot understand the farmer who booms other district shows and freezing works, and belittles his own Ho might just as well proclaim that his land is "hot worth working, and his stock is unworthy of notice. Isn’t it obvious that in booming his district’s annual show he cannot help thereby advertising the value of his land and the excellence of what ifproduces, be it stock or grain?