The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 1917. THE AGRICULTURAL SHOWPEN.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 2 March 1917, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 1917. THE AGRICULTURAL SHOWPEN.

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

The entertainment ot judges and visiting exhibitors by the Committee of the Agricultural and Pastoral fcihow cn Wednesday evening, il it did Homing else, it very strongly accentuated the extreme need of some such garnering of farmers in this young district, at least, once a year. There is not a farmer here, who attended that can say he did not gather some valuable hints and information. it is chiefly experience that furnishes the steps to learning which lead up to the highest pinnacles of success. Much of the world’s advancement becomes general through broadcasting the experience of the most thoughtful, inventive, and successful men. At the gathering on Wednesday evening some of the more progressive and successiul men in New Zealand farming gave their experiences of the value or agricultural and pastoral shows. The refrain of every speaker was “show your stock.” They stressed the point that the show pen provided the only royal road to the stockbreeder’s paradise. It was made clear that no breeder can reach the acme of success without gathering experience and it was also made quite obvious that the show pen was the very best, ana surest school wherein to gain the coveted knowledge. What value can farmers attach to the gladly-given gratuitous advice of such men wno spoke cn Wednesday evening'.’ A capable show judge is the highest graduate in some class of farming or stock-breeding; bis attainments are admitted when be becomes established . a popular adjudicator at ggricul-

tural and pastoral shows, and whether we realise it or not, he is the highest development of farming knowledge who cheerfully goes about the country giving freely to farmers, who have just recognised the value of the show pen, the benefit of his accumulated stock-learning. These men plainly laid it down on Wednesday evening that it was impossible to become anything in the stock-breeding -,v u na without gaining experience in the show pen. One successful breeder narrated how he failed and was disappointed time after time in his first showing days; how ho stayed till he could get an interview with the judge who had passed his exhibits over; how he questioned the judges and thereby learned how to commence to succeed. Another most successful prizetaker, blushingly told how his first show efforts were laughed at; how chagrined ho was to see judges jeering at the animals he thought perfection; how he tried the show pen again, and in a few short years reached the goal of his ambitious. Another, admittedly one of the best judges in New Zealand, stated how, in visiting Taihape shows, he had noted that young exhibitors were year by year gaining the experience and knowledge that is making them successfuf stock-breed-ers; it was competition in the show pen that furnished the road to highly profitable stock farming. This speaker stressed a point that we have more than once urged; he said, “Taihape will become a great stock centre.” “Perhaps,” he continued, “it is a great stock centre now, but what I mean is, it will become one of the greatest stock centres in New Zealand.” What is the meaning of all this to this district? Farmers are not toiling on their holdings, ana paying high prices for well-bred animals from other districts just for entertainment. It is the natural spirit of provision and progress that keeps their ambitions and their wills to achieve bright and virile. Every well-bred animal born on our farms adds to the Ltal value of our flocks, and the more men there ar e breeding such animals the higher will the total value of cur flocks soar. In ,this respect farmers are interdependent; each profits to some extent by the good work his neighbour is doing; Pie more good work there is done in breeding, the greater will be the demand for Taihape stock, the greater will be the volume of highest graded wool leaving the district, and the higher and more uniform will be the price received for meat. All the benefits accruing from a stock-breeding reputation and from Taihape being one of the greatest stock centres in New Zealand, will come to the farmers of this district. This is the outlook gathered from cho speeches,of show judges and noted exhibitors at Wednesday evening’s meeting. One swallow does not make a summer with all its glorious fruition and bounteousness, neither will cne successful stock-breeder make Taihape a farmer’s paradise. Those expert men had this fact in mind when they strongly urged our farmers to persevere in patronising the show pen. The stock centre “bag of treasure and riches” is dangling before the eyes ,of our farmers, and tne most rapid way to gain possession, we are told, is by that course of action whlcn constitutes the nearest road —the show pen. The farmer who is most likely to achieve the greatest good and sequentially become the richest man is he who strives to make two blades of grass grow where one is wont. Or in other words the man who breeds a valuable, highly profitable animal in place of one of less value and is less productive. The farmers of this pastoral district have the building up of this territory in their hands. How best to accomplish it successfully ancr quickly was indicated by a man who has risen by the methods h e advocates He said, “Sell two worthless animals, and buy one good one.” Good stock costs no more to breed and depasture than the poor class, but how incalculably more profitable they are, it nd how much more do they contribute towards achieving that which all farmers with spirit and ambition are seeking to attain.