Rural Competitions The matches were held on two great fields,
covering about thirty acres. By ten o'clock the larger field was patterned over with rect- angles, some along, some across, to each competitor, leisurely working his bit of ground as though alone and with the day before him. The tractor men were well away, some pulling two-furrow, others three- furrow, ploughs. The horse-ploughing was confined to an upper part of the great field, well away from the smell and noise of the tractors. The animals were handsomely groomed and ribboned ; noble shire beasts who went about their work with a demure self-consciousness that harmonised with the moods of the men behind the ploughs. It was obvious that both men and beasts were out after those challenge cups ; and no false diffidence about them.
In a field above the two large ones sheep-dog trials were being held throughout the day. The shepherds were anxious men, for a dog's temperament, no matter how experienced and aged he may be, is always liable to an unexpected vagary under the excitement of an audience. But I saw no untoward conduct. The dogs went about their work methodically, and once again I was filled with wonder at the sagacity of these near-human creatures. One could see them thinking, as they 'paused, one foot in air, looking between their masters and their flocks, for the word of command. I had my own Pembroke Corgi with me, and for once I had to put him on a lead, to prevent him from joining in. He sat and shivered with excitement while the sheep-dogs, especially those of his own nationality, went voicing round their charges. The whole business was intense and highly-struag.
Stacking and thatching, shepherding and tractor maintenance were also down in the programme, but these I could pot wait to witness. I found time, however, to go round the tents and marquees, taking a couple of tickets in the raffle tent, where the prizes were exhibited— geese, poultry, bags of potatoes and apples, wines and whiskeys. The exhibits in the hop-drying competition tent were baffling to a layman, for all looked alike, six-inch square blocks of pungent hops, all dried and pressed to a ginger-coloured tint, and as firm as plug tobacco. This was to test the skill of the hop-dryer, and did not take into account the original quality of the hops.
The scene as a whole was like a mediaeval pageant. Flags flew on the tents, the green and gold stubble flashed in the morning fire of autumn sunshine, contrasting with the rich, dull fustian of the strips of ground already ploughed and awaiting the verdict of the judges. The woods and hedges draped themselves like Paisley shawls, gay with a hundred colours, round the fields, and beyond this the landscape thinned away, past the tower of Staplehurst church and the rose roofs of the village, to the distant North Downs and the far gap through to the Isle of Thanet, where the edge of a sea-mist lay like a blue quilt. Above all this world of light and life the vault of autumn hung, imi- tating summer.
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