NZ Plough 2010

Vintage

John Stubbs of Ashburton remembers as a ten year old, the day his father drove the last six-horse ploughing team ever to compete in a Rakaia Ploughing Match.  The year was 1947 and the venue was Tom Duncan’s Rokeby property.  Winners of five gold medals, the Stubbs horses were walked from the home block north of the Rakaia River, across the kilometre-long bridge to the competition site.  It was the day before the contest started and motor traffic, such as there was, respectfully gave way to the team.  Mr Stubbs senior was of the old school and harboured a deep suspicion of the new-fangled diesel-guzzling tractors which were beginning to make their appearance.  He firmly believed that if farmers stopped breeding their own horse power and growing their own fuel, there would be trouble.  Storage facilities would have to be built for diesel and should New Zealand run out - as well it might – there would be no way of feeding the tractors.  And it would take many years to breed replacement horses and get the country back on its feet.

1920s Trade Stand

Standing proud amongst the NZ Plough 2010 trade displays will be one straight from the history books.
Born of a gin and a yarn between two ploughing cobbers, and inspired by an old photograph, Harvester Co. Inc’s stand will replicate a typical 1920s, Christchurch A&P show, trade display.
Company directors, Ken Readman (Fernside) and Alistair Stevens (Barrhill) say their trade stand will be ‘more exciting than just the same old vintage stuff in a different paddock,’ and may well be a world first.
As the company’s Tractor Dept. head, Readman is responsible for an up-to-the-minute tractor display. Horse Equipment manager, Stevens, is confident that he and his father Jack can provide as fine an array of carts, drays, wagons and horse-related equipment as any cropping farmer could wish for. Alan Duff (Methven), elected Chief Engineer in his absence, will exhibit six magnificent examples of that all-important piece of farm machinery, the stationary engine. 
The display is limited to equipment manufactured between 1920 and 1939, the year before tractor design changed from open radiator sides to covered bonnets and front grills.
Readman, who made scale cut-outs to see how much trade space the company should book, found it a difficult calculation.  Word had got around and there was no shortage of would-be exhibitors. 
“More than 30 people have contributed and the result is a range of equipment far greater than we planned. The standard is very high with most things restored virtually to factory condition.”   
Harvester Co. Inc’s lack of competitive commercial edge is unlikely to deter its sales representatives from peddling their restoration stories to anyone who will stand still long enough to take a step back in time.
NZ Plough 2010 runs from April 15-18, 10km north of Methven and will be well sign-posted from all highways.  Gate passes are available at CRT outlets or at the gate.  April 15-16 (NZ Ploughing Championships) $5 per day; April 17-18  (World Ploughing Contest) $15 per day.   School children are free.

Those Were The Days….

The late Jack Andrews was 90 years old when I interviewed him in April 1993. Deaf as a post, he sat stroking his cat, smiling benignly and slipping $10 notes into my bag with instructions that I go buy myself a nice lunch. The interview was conducted through his 60 year old daughter Betty who not only proved a rich source of information but also the ideal means of returning $10 notes to their rightful owner. Jack died a few months after this story was published.  - E McCaw.

Jack Andrews of Timaru, opened the conversation by saying he wasn’t a good person to interview – he just got out of jail yesterday.  He also insisted his birthday was April Fools Day.
Jack’s ready wit, thwarted by failing hearing, was a hallmark of this tall courtly gentleman with the captivating four-toothed smile, wild eyebrows and laughing eyes. It was an engaging face; the face of a man who loved life. Jack had two other loves - horses and his family, although his son Ross maintained a drop of brandy came a close third.
The black and white photographs Jack pulled from his pocket were of his Scottish bride Elizabeth who arrived in New Zealand  in 1925 with ninepence in her pocket and hope in her heart.  He also had pictures of his team of six plough horses (neatly clipped to prevent their sweat freezing in the winter air) and his nine children who between them produced 27 grandchildren, 39 great grandchildren and three great-great grandchildren.
Born in the South Canterbury town of Fairlie, Jack spent an idyllic childhood avoiding the school room whenever possible.  He was happier milking cows and digging potatoes for a shilling a day.
His teacher would tell him to get away home and help his father because he was no use in class.  There was a hint of obstinate pride in his claim that at 90 years old, he still could not write and had never so much as filled out a cheque.
Neither had he owned a car, preferring a horse and gig or bicycle.
As a young man, Jack took on contract ploughing for 12 years.  Large tracts of South Canterbury’s farm land were ploughed under by Jack and his two six-horse teams, all at the steady rate of less than two hectare per day.
He and Elizabeth lived in a tent for several years until their house was built.  Their first-born,  Betty, spent her first days in a box in the woolshed because it was too cold in the tent for a baby.
When contracting took him further afield, Jack and his man would camp on-site with the 12 horses.  Meals were supplied by Elizabeth, who with four children to look after, started each day at 4am, baking scones for the men, in the camp oven.
Jack was paid 19 shillings and sixpence an acre to reap, stook and stack a paddock of crop.  He employed five workers, paying them sixpence an hour.  Oats were eight shillings a bag and a good horse could be bought for 20 pounds.
The advent of tractors made little impact on Jack’s work.
“I was faster than they were and passed them when they broke down,” he mused.  “Took a long time to get them working properly.  The Power Board’s tractor needed my horses to help pull the power line over the hill when they took electricity into the McKenzie country.  It couldn’t do it on its own.”
He won the round when confronted by a new-fangled automobile whose proud owner refused to moved off the narrow road and let his horses through. 
“You get off the road,” he instructed.  “I’ll pull you out when you get stuck but if I get stuck, you won’t be able to pull me out.”
Raising nine children during the depression when wool sold for two pence a pound and a fat lamb for six shillings, was a challenge Jack waved aside.
“It wasn’t hard,” he said.  “We fed the buggers plenty of porridge, fish and rabbits and they were fine.”
His memories of the 1918 influenza epidemic were bitter.  The epidemic, was so severe it was dubbed the Black Plague.
“They let the bloody boat in with two buggers on it who had the Black Plague.  It swept the country killing whole families.  Killed more people than the war ever did.”
Jack attributed his mother’s recovery from the deadly killer to his father giving her frequent rub-downs with a mix of hot mustard and sulphur.  Sulphur fires burned constantly in the house to protect other family members and letters were sterilized in the camp oven before being posted. The only redeeming factor for Jack was that schools were closed for 12 months.
Jack retired from farming at the age of 74.  He never lost his love of horses or horse racing and at 90, had attended every Addington Cup day without a miss for 74 years.
His parting shot to me was that he had taken $400 off a horse two weeks earlier and if I cared to come back next year, he’d no doubt have a similar success story to tell.  Sadly, it didn’t happen.