SOUTH-EAST HANTS ASSOCIATION FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF INDUSTRIOUS AND MERITORIOUS AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS.
The Anniversary Meeting of this Association took place at Fareham, on Tuesday last. The proceedings of the day commenced at nine o’clock in the morning with ploughing matches at Cams Park, the ploughs being generally with two horses and a driver, without a boy. Each had to plough half an acre. There were also matches by boys under eighteen years of age. These emulated the straight lines, evenness of depth, and quickness and steadiness of work by the ploughman. There was a good show of vegetables by the growers (cottagers), but no agricultural implements.
The Dinner took place at the Red Lion Inn, Fareham, ...
C. Osborn, Esq. acknowledged the toast. He was glad at seeing so good an assemblage that day, though they had on former occasions two additional tables filled with company. They then offered many prizes for competitors that during twenty years had received them, and left scarcely any or but a few behind in several classes. Those who one year got the second prize next year obtained the first, and they, in fact, had sifted the country and rewarded the industrious and deserving in almost every rank of the agricultural community of labour. They thought, in fact, that they might sift the country for a series of years in vain. But they found that such was not the case. There were still very many deserving, intelligent, and industrious men to reward. They now appeared before them to offer them men skilled in farm labour. He believed, however, that they could not get labour enough. They could not get the farmer himself to work, and they could not get his men to overwork themselves. They could not get more physical work done, but they must get the work out of the farmers’ and mens’ heads and brains. The American Minister said at the Royal Agricultural Society’s dinner the other day, that in America they had to pay 7s a day for their labour, and as they had not got the money to pay such a price upon an extensive scale, they tried to get the work done without paying for it—(laughter). Therefore they had the thrashing machine, the reaping machine, and the new plough. And be thought that the little farmer might set his wits to work, and make an instrument to do his work better and cheaper, if he had not the opportunity of buying the first-rate implements manufactured by the agricultural machinists. By the introduction or use of superior tools they could accomplish superior work, and he would suggest the trial of such machines at their anniversaries. He would suggest, therefore, that another Society already existing there should be blended with theirs. Mr. Osborn then proceeded to detail the trouble they had in calling the Committee of the Institution together, and other matters of business, and suggested that they should change their place of meeting to Petersfield, Bishop's Waltham, &c. and, above all, to change their Secretary—(no, no). It had been proposed to change their President, when Mr. Delmé retired, and it had been done, and surely it would be better to have a new Secretary to bring new life into the Institution—(no, no). He believed that their Institution had caused their cottagers to be much improved in their skill and comfort. He believed that his men had among them £400 in the Savings’ Bank—(very great cheering). Two or three of them had gone into farming for themselves. He would not say anything more respecting them, but be might remark that when gentlemen farmers came to examine their balance sheet, however excellent their farms, it was generally a very bad one. Much had been said about Scotch bailiffs, and they were very highly spoken of, but he must say that they seldom went into business on their own account. He only knew of one himself, and that was the case in which the party became the worst farmer in the county—(laughter and applause). He hoped that some gentleman would be proposed for the Secretaryship—(no, no).
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