BOWLS AND BOWLERS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8550, 8 October 1907, Page 5

BOWLS AND BOWLERS.

OBSERVATIONS BY MR PRINCE Mr G. E. Prince, skip of the team of Now Zealand bowl-.ra that toured Engird and Scotland this year, returned to Wellington last week. He told a Post reporter that the extra 25 feet length of most of the English greens and their heaviness, as a result of a peculiarly late season, handicapped "the New Zealanders, and made'their play poor. They had left New Zealand five weeks too soon. But when they got to Scotland and fourth fast greer sof no greater length than thosa of this colony, and of keen texture, they acquitted themselves with greater credit. There is a pecuHj>a'r carpetlike texture in the Scottish and the grass blades are so - fine and lie so closely together that there is not a bare spot to be seen in any part and their drawing characteristics are extremely great. He has brought out with him some grass seed of a special variety presented to him by a borderman of Carlisle, and he intends to cultivate this »n the hope of benefiting the quality of Newtown green. Throughout their tour the New Zealanders were treated with great hospitality. They spent money on the preparation of rinks in England. One club had spent £3CO in importing from Cumberland a special soil which possessed bowling properties as superb as that possessed by Bulli soil for cricket pitches. In Scotland a goodly number of people play go!f, and the others are all bowlers. Football and cricket are heard of occasionally, but only golf and bowling count. Public greens are to be found everywhere, and a man may go to one of these at anytime «jd have a games of twenty-one heads Wv a penny. There are very fine playtrs in Scotland, and Mr Prince opines that a representative match between sixrink teams of Scots and New Zealanders would be worth going thousands of miles to see. The feature ot Scottish bowling which he found most pleasing was the complete enjoyment which all players got from their games. Here in New Zealand we " were inclined to take our bowling too seriously. At Lanark he visited the green on which Mr John Brackenridge, senior, now of Wellington, learnt his bowling. There he saw the photograph of Mr Brackenridge's father, also a bowler of fame, hanging in the- pavilion. In London Mr Prince encountered several New Zealanders who were on tour. He got on an omnibus one day and found himself sitting alongsi le Mr Fred. Townsend. Mr Louis Biundell, _ who had quite recovered from the accident tha*. happened to him in Pari?, was another Wellington resident whom Mr Prince met in London, also Mr and Mrs Pirie and Mr Grundy. At Oxford he fell in with Mr John Mills. In Ireland Mr Prince saw no bowling, and he only had two games in Canada. In Australia, however, he had a .few w-.eks' sport, and he feels envious because New South Wales bowlers are able to follow their pastime for nine months in the year. The rule of play which obliges them to keep both feet on the mat compels a cramped style, and Mr Prince is of opinion that ► this defect prevents their standard of play being as hi«ch as it might be in other circumstance.