THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1909. THE SHOW.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3117, 17 February 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1909. THE SHOW.

Perhaps ihe most striking lesson of the twenty-second Show of the Masterton A. and P. Association, now taking place, is that the Wairarapa is rapidly taking up a-very conspicuous positioti in the New Zealand sheep-raising world, and on this feature alone there is every reason for the district to feel proud. Masterton has for some years past quietly but steadily advanced in the matter of scientific sheep-raising, and encouraged and assisted by the inducements held out by the Masterton A. and P. Association in common with neighbouring societies, local breeders now stand pre-eminent among the farmers of the Dominion. The present Show teaches other things

1T .We or less emphatically, but in the j matter of the proving of the dis- < r "terdcfs prominence as a sheep-raising i ' ; country where scientific lines are | ' adopted there is quite sufficient J cause for gratification and the A. j and P. Association deserves hearty congratulation on the wonderful display of sheep now assembled on the grounds. The cattle classes, tjo, are an object lesson of the new era of stock raising of recent birth. It must be gratifying to the Associiat ion to note how the big export breeder and the smaller farmer

are competing one against the other in these classes, and how the mat-j ter of distance and inconvenience I does not hinder the far-away breeder j from sending down literally trainloads of valuable stock to win a name for their owner. There are equally satisfying remarks to make about the harse section, and' in the J three primary classes there is on the i Masterton Showgrounds to-day the, most magnificent pastoral advertisement the district has ever had. Record entries are far exceeded in importance by record quality and condition, and outside breeders have expressed universal pleasure at ti;e nature of the exhibition of stock. The Show is in all other respects well up to the standard of previous years. Some classes have decrees:d materially in point of size anj quality, but neighbouring Shows have proved that this feature is not common [to Masterton only. Once important > classes have failed to

maintain their position en the schedule while others have benefited, notably is this so with the pig and kennel classes. The Show is one of which the district and the Association have every reason to feel proud, and if the first Solway Show is up to the standard of the present one there will be every reason to hope that it will not be very long before the Masterton Show will attract as large an attendawce of the public as the Manawatu Association's big Fair.