The man from the land is in town in his hundreds, and a new element is added to the familiar spruce city population.
In Princes street and about the Post Office one notices the newcomers, for even the size of Dunedin does not prevent one from picking out the stranger, especially if he be from the regions remote from asphalt.
Advance parties came into town on Saturday, and filled up much of the available accommodation not taken beforehand by the far-seeing.
The main body arrived yesterday, and snapped up the vacant beds in the hotels and boarding-houses.
A substantial reinforcement will arrive to-morrow, and will include a strong company of the division known as ''sports'', whose main objective will be the racecourse.
By to-morrow night, Dunedin will be full of strangers; and one trusts that the accommodation will stretch so as to go all around, for a billiard table is a good thing to play on, but makes a bad bed.
All this is due to the Winter Show, which was opened yesterday, under the most favourable auspices.
Time was when the show amounted to a very small affair, and the big incursion from the country took place at another time, promoted more by recreative reasons than by the prospect of solid advantage allied to sober pleasure for the farmer.
But this annual affair has grown in importance as the agricultural, pastoral, and industrial resources of Otago have been developed, and from a healthy infancy 22 years ago it has now attained and passed a vigorous majority.
Winter Show Week is a carnival time for Dunedin. But it is ''the big week'' par excellence for the men on the land.
At no other time, perhaps, do they get such opportunities for social intercourse and a stimulating change of views.
For the town-dweller, also, it is of the greatest educational importance.
After all, it is the farmer who feeds us, using the word ''farmer'' in its broadest sense to include the pastoralist and the backbone of the dairying industry, as well as the agriculturalist.
The farmer might live and thrive on his holding were the other population of the globe annihilated and he was left isolated.
But the city man is ultimately dependent on the primary produce for his food; for cereals do not grow in the Stock Exchange, nor fat stock in Princes street.
The Winter Show, if one looks at it in that way, is an exemplification of the inter-dependence of the industries.
The producer relies on the manufacturer, and the latter, in turn, on the man who supplies him with his raw material.
At the show the two classes are brought into contact, and the fruits of their co-operation are shown side by side, and both benefit educationally.
• An enterprise under the title of the ''Southern Isles Exploitation Company'' has been formed at Invercargill.
The capital of the company is £10,000, divided into 10,000 shares of £1 each, and the objects are: ''To acquire and take over as a going concern the business now carried on by Mr Joseph Hatch, of Invercargill, oil merchant, at the Macquarrie Islands and Hobart, in Tasmania, of procuring and refining and dealing in oil from whales, sea elephants, and other animals of the South Pacific Ocean.''
• Zeppelins were reported near Ramsgate, Brentwood, and certain outlying districts of London. Many fires were reported, but they cannot actually be connected with the visit of the airships.
The Press Bureau, on the ground of public safety, prohibits the publication of details. - ODT, 2.6.1915.
• COPIES OF PICTURE AVAILABLE FROM ODT FRONT OFFICE, LOWER STUART ST, OR WWW.OTAGOIMAGES.CO.NZ
