COUNTRY STOCK SALE
The day is fine, but his boots are too dirty for description. They squelch when he walks. Weathered-looking gaiters keep out the filth and the cold, cutting wind. They are held up and in place with thick string and two 4 in. nails. Warm corduroy trousers bulge at the top of the gaiters. The belt he made himself from the best hide. The leather is thick and with no wrinkles. If you’re in the crowd, the sun shining on the buckle catches your eye. His shirt is spotlessly clean, smoothly ironed, but the top button of the collar is undone and his tie is loose from the usual tidiness. His woollen cardigan is not fastened. It fills in the wind and gives you the impression of a greater bulk than is so. In his hand is a black-covered notebook, and you notice with surprise his nails are clean and carefully cut. When he’s working, his hands aren’t still very often. The wind blows his straight black hair across his eyes, and he smoothes it into place without thinking or appearing to notice. While he’s working he doesn’t seem to smoke much, and when he does it is with quick, impatient draws on a cigarette he soon throws away. You don’t need to be close to hear his voice, which is strong and without harshness. At the end of the day his face is rather strained and weary but has lost nothing of its good humour, his eyes are still twinkling, his smile is as quick.
It is Tuesday. It is the day of the Levin weekly stock sale. And it is the auctioneer we are looking at. You wouldn’t like his job : it is no wonder he looks weary about four o’clock in the afternoon. The yarding has been small, the prices high, but it is that auctioneer’s job to make them high, to raise bids if necessary against the better judgment of the buyers. He works on commission, and so does his firm. High prices pay the two of them. Questions are asked if there are too many bad days. Stock firms will tell you an auctioneer’s life is hard, that they often crack under the strain. Selling in the ring and in the pen is only a part of their work. These days especially, farmers ask them for advice and help in culling their flocks and herds, mating their animals, buying and selling—they are expected to be authorities on a hundred different subjects. The auctioneer himself says he likes the work, but that he supposes it is rather hard. More than anything he wishes his telephone wouldn’t ring so much. It means that practically every night he can’t get to sleep until after midnight. It wouldn’t be so bad if only they would leave Sunday quiet, but they don’t. The stock sale at Levin supplies most of the meat for the Wellington market. Business is always brisk. And such a noise as you never heard in your life. Boots. Talk. Bidding. Dogs. Pigs.
Cattle. Trains. Sheep. A lost lamb. Wind and trees. Cars. Trucks. Squeals. Laughing. Even a horse. Squelch of mud. Teacups. Knives, forks. A cold engine. Hoofs. Especially the pigs. Banging gates. Such unaccustomed noise if you’re from the city. The smells are as varied. The language is stronger but more cheerful. Go to a stock sale, if you haven’t been already, when you have the chance. It’s fun. But be careful when the bidding is flying from mouth to mouth that you don’t move a finger, even twitch an eyebrow. You mightn’t have room in your house for the pen of fine fat lambs— “ all good, bright, and healthy. The Best ” —that you find you have bought. " 0.K., boys, over we go.” The auctioneer swings from one pen to the bars of another. The crowd moves a pace or two. “ Right oh ! Buyers. Say how much and Away We Go. Tell me what I’ve got for a start.” His voice is quiet With the bidding it swells forcefully, but never so as to lose its tone. “ Right, what’ve I got ? What do you say ? 35 bob, 35 bob ? 30 bob, 30 shillings ? Right, I’ve got 26. Twenty-six. 26.” He cracks out the first bid. There is nothing quiet about him now, nothing still. There isn’t until those thirty-four fat lambs have a new owner. The crowd nudges closer. The prices are good to-day
not that you’d think so from the ton of the auctioneer. The bids follow each other, as thick, as fast, as sharp as hailstones on an iron roof. “ 26 bob 26 26 26 26 shillings, 26 and sixpence 26 and a half 26J 26/6 and a half a |, an’ 9 an’ 9999 9d. an' ninepence 26/an’ ninepence ninepence ninepence three-quarters 26 and three-quarters 26f an’ ninepence an’ ninepence. Come on men, I’m not going to dwell, I’m going to sell, I’m going to cash ’em, and they’re beauts.” The words come rushing, but with smoothness, with power to sell. There is no doubting the interest — except of the “ beauts ” : they stand there, the thirty-four of them, looking only as thirty-four prime fat lambs could look, or would want to look. They show every sign of growing into thirty-four fat sheep. But they won’t. Are they concerned, even interested ? They are not. They are prime fat lambs. Meantime, it’s . . . “ Thirty bob one sov. and a half sov. and a half 30 shillings 30/- 30/- 30 bob 30s. 30 bob bob bob 30 shillings 30 30 30, thirty and three and three an’ three an’ 3 an’ 3 an’ three thirty shillings and threepence did I hear six ? Are you judges or aren’t you ? They’re going cheap. And threepence. I’m not going to dwell ; shake it along, who’s in for their chop ? ” A nod from the owner
— referred to as the squire or the governor — the price is right. “30/3 30/3 an’ threepence. They’re on the market, I’m a seller, even at this price they’re on the market, they’re ... 30 and six and a half and six an’ a half a half a half a half a I a j a half. Last call, I’ll take a penny, you’ve got me
by the short hairs ; last 77 call, last bid, a penny over 30 and a half a l “ L half a half. Last call. /[ And they’re gone. To y Mr. Tames Standish, his ~,, , n ™ i t- » “I II tak call. Thank you, Jim. The thirty-four prime fat lambs have their owner. There is scribbling in notebooks, dabs of paint. And it’s O.K. Boys, Over We Go.
For the hours of the day it goes on. No relief from that strain, the pace, the effort for that last penny. And during the week there are perhaps other markets, clearing sales, valuations and advice, the ringing of that telephone. The men who are auctioneers often find it too tough. You notice one sometimes with his notebook held to his ear, held to catch the calls ; constantly working amid the din, making most of it, listening through and above it
has affected his hearing. If he’s lucky, his years to superannuation are not far away ; if he’s not, it means another job, another type of work. It happens often. Pens with concrete floors and stout railings. For some reason those holding the pigs were under an iron roof. The others were open. Concrete paths. The sheep and the pigs are sold in the pens ; the cattle all go under the hammer in one yard. On the sides of that yard are two structures, two min-
iature grandstands,
facing into each other, the yard in between —the smaller is for the auctioneer and his assistants, the larger to seat the buyers. Each lot of cattle is driven from the pen to this yard for its sale. To the front of the saleyard are the offices of two stock and station firms, beside them a cafeteria selling tea, pies, sandwiches, and cakes. For six days of the week the yard is deserted, its bareness orderly with straight railings and concrete paths, square buildings ; for the seventh, a Tuesday, all is confusion of men and beasts and movement, of noise and smell, of busyness.
Horses, their reins halfhitched through swinging stirrups, wander for their grazing untethered. Dogs—you can’t help noticing how many have a glassy, a blind eye— make the most of this weekly playtime. A. lamb, its mother lost, bleats pitifully, making your heart jump in your throat ; a second later you’re laughing and wondering at its frolics on legs as long as poppy stalks, as rigid and as fluffy. A “ tin lizz ” catches your eye. Over its bonnet it has three grubby tea-towels. You wonder why. The rail car to Wellington
sleeks smoothly, quietly past. The line is only 50 yards away. Often there are trains ; nothing quiet about those fearsome engines—some of the cattle especially are disturbed. Above it all is the sound of pigs continually squealing. Until the passing of the regulations prohibiting the sale to the public of pork, Levin each week had a very large yarding of pigs ; these days the numbers are much smaller. Butchers miss the business, but there is no squealing. Six hundred fat sheep ; fifty fat cattle, forty dairy cows, fifty store cattle ; forty fat and store pigs ; and sundries. The yarding was small, below average, the day a Kovero representative listened to the din and looked at the confusion. The prices, though, were excellent, the best of the season. Fat lambs, 355. ; fat wethers, 41s. ; fat ewes, 345. ; vealers and runners, £3 12s. 6d.; heifers and cows, £lO 12s. 6d.; dairy cows, /14 ; heifers, £5 17s. Top prices, but the averages weren’t much below. Butchers made up most of the buyers ; farmers, of course, were calling, especially for the dairy cows ; but a farmer doesn’t have to be a buyer to attend a stock sale. He doesn’t have many other chances to meet his friends and neighbours, to
discuss all the subjects affecting his livelihood. Values, of course, must be known in all their variations of sale to sale, of different districts, of changing seasons. To see for himself is much more satisfactory than a lifeless newspaper report of figures. So many of the farmers close round the pens are not buyers, but they are no less interested in those ewes and those “ fine bodies of beef.” And they’d probably tell you those auctioneers have to be known, watched for their tricks.
Tricks of trotting the bids of taking a call that hasn’t been made, so that a keen but innocent buyer will follow with another. Tricks of quick talk that cause a buyer to think he has raised a bid by a penny or threepence, only to find when he comes to square his account that it was a shilling, perhaps half a crown. Auctioneers’ assistants often act as buying agents ; sometimes, too, they estimate what they think is the buyer’s limit, trotting the bidding along with false calls. And sometimes it’s not their bidding but their judgment that is false ; they are left with the final bid, often a fairly high price. There is no guarantee they will get their money back by putting their purchases under the hammer again. However, shrewdness is the virtue not
only of auctioneers ; those farmers know more than a thing or two. And auctioneers know that if they get a bad name, a reputation for trotting, for tricks that sail closer into the wind than good business allows, they may as well put their own job under the hammer. They know it doesn’t pay. It’s mud and filth and too much noise. You wonder at the vigour, the quickness, the rushing talk, the sallies of the auctioneer. You see the strain on his face towards the end of the day, you watch him laughing loudly, hands on hips, body swayed back. You’re glad when you catch occasionally a quiet smile in place of that laughing ; it shows the man, not the agent
of the stock firm. Round you are the buyers with their talk and their interest, their country clothes. And you don’t have to be an expert to judge the quality of some of those animals. With so much to look at, to listen to, to wonder about,
so much that is different from anything
else of either city or country, you can’t help be surprised the time has gone so quickly. It has been pleas ant in the sunshine. And you’ll appreciate a couple of handles in that country bar to wash all that dust out of your throat before
tea —before you eat your roast beef.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/WWKOR19440911.2.11
Bibliographic details
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Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 18, 11 September 1944, Page 16
Word count
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2,122COUNTRY STOCK SALE Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 18, 11 September 1944, Page 16
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