The Rural Voice, 1995-09, Page 40Master of the
Match
Over 60 years Alfred Brunton has been a
competitor, a judge, a coach, and chairman
of the 1976 organizing IPM committee. He's
seen the International change and grow.
by Keith Roulston
Retired now and living in Tara, Alfred Brunton still judges
at the International Plowing Match. Ile first went as a
competitor in 1935. Ile's judged since 1955.
When Alfred Brunton travels south from his
retirement home in Tara to judge at the 1995
International Plowing Match in Waterloo, it will
mark 60 years of involvement with the plowing match in
one way or another. He has been a participant, a judge, a
coach and in 1976, was chairman of the local organizing
committee when Bruce County hosted the match. He's won
prizes and honours but the greatest reward, he says, is the
friends he has met along the way.
36 THE RURAL VOICE
As an 18 -year-old in 1935 he'd never even thought of
entering the plowing match but those were the days when
each county entered a team of young men in their late teens
in the plowing match. "They had two and they needed a
third one so somehow or other they decided I was going to
be the third one." He was approached by the local clerk of
the township, Albert Speer, to be part of the team and after
thinking it over, agreed. He'd done lots of plowing at
home but had never considered getting involved in
competition.
But the clerk and the local Massey Harris dealer arrived
at the farm with a new plow and took him out to the field to
give him a few tips on plowing and the Bruce County Ag
Rep provided a trailer to haul the three plows and the team
to the match — not without incident because a wheel fell
off the trailer and passed them as they drove, ending up in
a swamp.
All the tips couldn't help a lot when they arrived at the
plowing match in Caledonia in the hard, dry Haldimand
clay, Brunton recalls. The ground was so hard some of the
horses refused to pull. Some of the plowmen broke the
double -trees on the harness. "The man next to me broke his
double tree and he had the lines around his back and the
horses pulled him right over the plow."
It was his introduction to plowing matches and
thereafter he was active at both the local and the
International level.
When the International picked up again after World War
II, he began competing again and in 1947 he captured the
overall championship, winning the right to compete in
England and Ireland in 1948. There he saw plowing done
differently. Plowmen used twine as we'd use in a garden,
to make sure they plowed a straight first furrow and they
used wheels on their horse-drawn plows. "When we went
over there the wheels were there for our plows but we
didn't use them. We never used wheels in this country. We
said that only kids under 12 used wheels in Canada."
The challenge of horse plowing met, he began plowing
with a tractor, sharing a plow with a neighbour. "He'd
plow at one match and I'd plow at the next." They
worked that way until each had gained some experience in
tractor plowing.
About 1950 Brunton started judging other people's
furrows at local matches and in 1955 judged for the first
time at the International. This year will mark his 40th
anniversary judging at the International. "It doesn't seem
that long but that's what it is," he chuckles. "I've seen a lot
of plowing matches."
In his 60 years he's seen many changes in the
International. The most notable to casual visitors, of
course, is the growth of the tented city. In those early years
there was no tented "city": just one tent for the
headquarters with a fireplace in the middle where people
could warm up, he recalls. Now the tented city, full of
exhibitors of farm machinery, cars and other paraphernalia
of rural life, is often the only part of the event many
visitors see. But for the afficionados of plowing, the real
events are still out in the fields where skilled men and
women turn their furrows.
In his 60 years the biggest change, of course, is from
horses to tractors. "There'd be 40 or 50 teams in one
class," he says of those days when the horse was king. Last