The Waikato Argus GEORGE EDGECUMBE, Proprietor. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1898.

Waikato Argus, Volume V, Issue 354, 15 October 1898, Page 2

The Waikato Argus GEORGE EDGECUMBE, Proprietor. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1898.

• • The great festival of tho year to the farmers and graziers of a district, so far as purely mundane matters arc concerned, is unquestionally the Agricultural and Pastoral Show. The great majority, and very properly so, look upon it as a duty they owe to themselves to attend in order to gather new ideas and to arrive at a correct estimate of the standard of excellence, which they must make every effort to reach, if they are to l>e promoted to the front rank of the army of peace or retain their position, if they have already been advanced to that enviable position. It is the ambition of individuals and classes which is mainly instrumental in bringing aboutimprovcments. Ambition is the mother of research and continuous industry, and they are the twin sisters which pilot the chariot of progress. The clay lias passed when any man, if he is to succeed in life, can content himself with adhering to old systems and shutting his eyes,and his understanding to what

is transpiring around his own location and throughout the world. The annual show affords him an opportunity to use his eyes and his understanding. He has paraded before him all that is most excellent in the shape of live stock. He has also exhibited for his inspection all the latest inventions in the shape of implements and machinery for the cultivation of the land, t and for dealing with its produce so far as that comes within the sphere of a farmer’s avocations. In addition to this, he has the assistance of the judges, who are generally men whose success as breeders, or long experience in the use of agricultural machinery justifies their position. Aside from the above purely utilitarian reasons for holding these annual shows, there is the social phase of the question. They gather together, the farmers, their wives and families, who possibly only meet on that one day of the year, although they may at one time have been neighbours and close friends. When these meet, many an anecdote of early struggles and difficulties overcome is told. The show, which opens at Claudelauds on the 26th inst., bids fair to equal, if not excel, any that have hitherto been held in the Waikato, and those, of late years at any rate, have been matter for justifiable pride. The entries close to-day, and we learn that already those made justify our prediction of the excellence of the show of 1898. Let us hope that the weather will be favourable ; if this be the case, this advantage, combined with the experience of the committee and the secretary and complete railway arrangements, must command success.