I noticed a very non-agricultural individual in a top hat, who tried to get into conversation with me and who succeeded in getting a luncheon ticket gratis. These sale luncheons were at the time very bountiful spreads, including plenty of champagne, and the man under my observation made a very hearty meal. Short speeches and toasts always follow, but an adjournment is quickly made to the sale tent, before the evaporation of the effects of the hospitality. It is the custom for a glove to be passed round to collect subscriptions for the shepherd, during the progress of the sale, and on this occasion two young fellows undertook the duty of collectors. The man, who had done himself so well at Mr. Graham's expense, was evidently not buying or even making bids, and to each of the collectors he said he had already contributed to the other. Being suspicious they compared notes, and found that he had made the same excuse to both. Such meanness after the hospitality he had received was intolerable; shouting, "He's a Welsher," they lifted him bodily, protesting and struggling, rushed him out of the tent into a neighbouring field, and cast him into a dirty pond covered with green and slimy duckweed! A miserable object he scrambled out, for the pond was shallow, and took his dishevelled and bedraggled presence away as fast as he could limp along, amid the laughter and jeers of the crowd.
The Hampshire Down ram sales in the palmy days of farming were organized upon the same scale of liberality, and while the sale was proceeding steam was kept up by handing round boxes of sixpenny cigars, and brandy and water in buckets. It is, of course, good policy to keep a company of buyers in good humour, but I think it has long since been recognized that hospitality was carried a little too far in those times of prosperity, and, in these degenerate if more business-like days, extravagance is much less evident, though there is a hearty welcome and abundance for all.
Agricultural shows under favourable weather conditions are always popular and well-attended. The large exhibitions of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, the Bath and West of England, and the Royal Counties, especially attract immense crowds; much business in novel implements, machinery, seeds, and artificial fertilizers, was done when times were good, and the towns in which the shows are held benefit by a large increase in general trade. The weather, however, is the arbiter as to the attendance, upon which the financial result of the show depends.
In 1879, the last of the miserable decade that ruined thousands of farmers all over the country with almost continuous wet seasons, poor crops, and wretched prices, the Royal Agricultural Society held its show at Kilburn. The ground had been carefully prepared and adapted for the great show with the usual liberal outlay; the work for next year's show always commencing as soon as the show of the current year is over; but the site was situated on the stiff London clay, and, after weeks of summer rains and the traffic caused by collecting the heavy engines and machinery and the materials used in the construction of the sheds and buildings, the ground was churned into a quagmire of clay and water, so that in places it was impassable, and some of the exhibits were isolated. Thousands of wattled hurdles were purchased in Hampshire, and laid flat on the mud along the main routes to the tents and sheds, but they were quickly trodden in out of sight. Many ponderous engines were bogged on their way to their appointed places; nothing could move them, and they remained looking like derelict wrecks, plastered with mud, sunk unevenly above the axles of their wheels.
I attended the show and shall never forget the scene of disaster. One afternoon the Prince of Wales—the late King Edward—and a Royal party made a gallant attempt, in carriages, to see the principal exhibits, and succeeded, by following a carefully selected and guarded route. The crowd was dense by the side of the track, and people were making a harvest by letting out chairs to stand on, so as to get a view of the procession, with cries of, "'Ere you are, sir; 'ere you are, warranted not to sink in more than a mile!" Outside the show-yard, too, the streets were lined with long rows of nondescripts, scraping the adhesive clay off the shoes of the people leaving the show.
I had a pocket of my hops on exhibition entered in the Worcester class, and had great difficulty in getting near it. I found the shed at last, deserted and surrounded by water, with a pool below the benches on which the hops were staged. My pocket was sold straight from the show-yard, and when my factor sent in the account, I found that the pocket had gained no less than seventeen pounds from the damp to which it had been subjected since it left my premises, about ten days previously; hops, at that time, were worth about 1s. a pound, so that the increased value more than balanced all expenses.
A story is told of Tennyson at the Royal Counties show at Guildford. Accompanied by a lady and child he was walking round the exhibits, closely followed by an ardent admirer, anxious to catch any nights of fancy that might fall from his lips. Time passed, and the poet showed no signs of inspiration until the party approached a refreshment tent; then, to the lady he said, to the astonishment of the follower, "Just look after this child a minute while I go and get a glass of beer!" I cannot vouch for the truth of this story, but I tell the tale as 'twas told to me.
It is surprising how long farm implements will last if kept in the dry and repaired when necessary. I remember a waggon at Alton in the seventies, which bore the name of the original owner and the date 1795; it was still in use. When I decided to give up farming, or rather, when farming had given up me, I disposed of my stock and implements by the usual auction sale. The attraction of a pedigree herd of Jerseys, and a useful lot of horses and implements, brought a large company together, and Aldington was a lively place that day. I was talking to my son-in-law some time afterwards, and spoke with amusement about the price an old iron Cambridge roller had made, not in the least knowing who was the purchaser, until he said, "And I was the mug who bought it!" I believe, however, that a year or two later it fully maintained its price when valued to the next owner, and probably to-day it must be worth at least three times the money. I can trace its history for a period of fifty-three years, and I don't think it was new at the beginning.