296 CANADIAN TURF RECOLLECTIONS 



A PLOWING MATCH THAT DID NOT COME OFF. 



During twenty years of active platform work I met 

 many able speakers. I used to keep a list of those who 

 opposed me, but it grew to such proportions that I drop- 

 ped it. During my numerous campaigns advocating a 

 stringent license law against prohibition, it was no un- 

 usual thing for half a dozen clergymen in one night to 

 accept my invitation to discuss the question, and fierce 

 though the fight was in many counties of Ontario I am 

 pleased to record the fact that I have only pleasant 

 recollections of my intercourse with my clerical oppon- 

 ents. 



In politics I met many hard fighters, but to my mind 

 the most formidable of them all was the late Hon. Archi- 

 bald McKellar, Minister of Agriculture in the Mowat 

 Government. He was not an orator, but was one of those 

 fluent speakers, full of force and possessing a clear, 

 pleasant voice which made every word sound clear and 

 distinct. In addressing an audience of farmers he was 

 particularly strong, and being himself a practical agri- 

 culturist he spoke with authority on farming subjects. 



I have alluded to the above facts so that my readers 

 can understand and appreciate that it was no easy task 

 to hold your own in an assemblage of farmers against 

 such an experienced member of their own class. 



The circumstance I am about to relate took place at 

 Flesherton, in Grey county, during an election for the 

 Ontario Legislature in which the late A. W. Lauder 

 was the Conservative candidate, and Nathaniel Dickey, 

 the standard-bearer of the Reform party. Mr. McKellar 

 was representing Mr. Dickey on the occasion, and I was 

 acting in a similar capacity for Mr. Lauder. The hall 

 was filled to the doors with farmers, and Mr. McKellar 



