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Village Squire, 1978-09, Page 8FINE FURNITURE • PAINTS CARPETS • WALLCOVERINGS Robert L. Plumsteel Interiors DECORATING PHONE 527-0902 SEAFORTH ills have over 10 gears in inferior design experience We will decorate your room or home to suit your personality. Give us a call and we will come to your home with our free decorating service. We can co-ordinate to your Special Needs. Please check our good values before the sales tax goes up. We have a Targe selection of furniture, floor covering, wall covering and paints. other county residents who 'will help out with the work. He's been working on the problems involved for over a year and a half and went last year to Frontenac county to see the operation of the match there. His committee has also met several times with officials from Frontenac. Research has shown that the average car pulling up to the match parking lot will have three persons in it. Most of the 50,000 persons per day will arrive by car at the south end of the site off Morris County concession 1, which runs parallel to Highway 86. A few people, however, will be coming a different way: by aircraft. They'll land at a flying field off Highway 86 west of Wingham and be bussed to the site. There are immense problems for the utilities companies also. They have to provide all the services required for a small city in what• was until August 1 a farm field. Electrical power must be brought in and telephone lines provided. And they have to be put in in such a way that they will provide good service, yet can quickly be taken out again. Meanwhile the exhibitors are each planning their individual displays. These may include something as simple as a trailer or small tent set up by some small local business or immense displays by some of the big machinery companies. Huge tents are rented and set up. Sometimes farm building companies will erect entire buildings on their rented plots which are taken down again at the end of the match. The problem of feeding 50,000 people a day must be solved. Local church groups and Women's Institutes pitch in to do much of the work, putting in long, long hours of planning and preparing the food. Other committees have to look after efficiently parking the thousands of cars that arrive daily at the site. The Junior Farmers will use tractors and farm wagons to transport people from the parking lots to the areas of activities. Of course the heart of the plowing match is still the plowing itself, even if many in attendance never get to see it. Competitors come from as far away as Europe to take part in the plowing and they are as competitive as top golfers or race car drivers. Coming so far from home they are often unable to bring their own equipment with them so it is the job of Nell McGavin of Walton and his tractor committee to find equipment as close as possible to the type of equipment the competitor is used to using. Mr. McGavin and many of his committee members are farm machinery dealers so they generally know where they can get the kind of tractor required then they make sure it is in top shape and arrange for delivery to and from the site. Usually the competitor provides hisown plow or has a machinery company provide one as close as possible to the kind of plow he's used to. You see plowing may seem like just turning over land to the ordinary observer but there are rules to be followed and devotees of the art are as particular about their equipment as are golfers with their clubs. When the match started in 1913, of course, tractors were a rarity. In fact their was only one tractor at that event and it was probablyip source of amusement for horse lovers who knew it would never replace old Dobbin. Horses still have their part in the 1978 event and a well-known heavy horse man Jim Aitcheson of R.R.2 Lucknow is in charge of finding accommodation, hay and straw for the equine visitors. His committee is also charged with the responsibility of finding horses for horsemen who want to compete but can't bring their own stock with them. Don Martin of Ethel is one chairman of a committee who can't look to past experience of others to help him out. He's in charge of the farm machinery demonstrations, something that will be held for the first time at an IPM this year. This will see areas set aside for the machinery companies to show their machines in operation. It's something the farmers attended wanted more of, but the machinery companies weren't exactly ecstatic over, apparently fearing it could turn into a competition between companies. For many consumers, however, interest will be centred in the Ladies Programme activities in two tents and a building. Tent 1 will offer entertainment, cooking demonstrations. VILLAGE SQUIRE/SEPTEMBERI978. PG. 7.