Plowing match more about dough than dirt
As a spectator sport, competitive team plowing ranks right up there with chess, minus the excitement.
But for the competitors, it’s a serious business with hours spent exercising or “legging up” the team, adjusting the plow by fractions of a centimetre, cleaning and oiling equipment.
All this activity culminates in an appearance at a local plowing match, many of which are held throughout Ontario each fall.
Although they’re unheard of in much of suburbia, plowing matches can be major events in farm country.
They’re not as numerous as fall fairs, but competition at these events can be intense.
Plow jockeys have the opportunity to earn enough points at local matches to compete at the granddaddy of them all, the International Plowing Match (IPM) coming to the Cornwall area next week.
It doesn’t end there either. Winners can go on to compete at world matches. Serious business. No one knows for sure how long neighbours have been trying to outdo each other plowing land in preparation for next spring’s seeding. However, competitive matches date to the mid-1800s.
A provincial competition to give some of these earlier plowing matches a focus was discussed in 1910 by the York plowmen at a meeting in Richmond Hill.
The Ontario Plowmen’s Association, the IPM parent organization, was formed the following year and the first forerunner to today’s IPM was held in 1913 in Toronto.
Well before that, in 1846, the initial provincial exhibition, now the CNE, in Toronto featured competitive plowing at Yonge Street near St. Clair Avenue East. That area couldn’t be plowed today without jackhammers and bulldozers to break up the concrete and asphalt.
Early plowing matches allowed farmers to display their skill and show off their horses or mules. Little has changed.
The teamsters compete both with walking plows and sulky plows on which they ride.
In addition to the horse and mule plowing, a wide variety of tractor classes are featured at modern plowing matches.
In all classes, contestants are scored for the opening split, the crown, the finish, and how well whatever was growing out of the ground is inverted.
Classes for young competitors include the Queen of the Furrow contest in which competitors have to show their skill at plowing in addition to surviving an interview and delivering a prepared speech.
Winners will represent their local plowing association at various community events promoting agriculture throughout the year, before competing at next fall’s IPM.
Although plowing was the seminal event for the IPM, today’s five-day version, with Rural Expo added to the title, is less about turning sod and more about bringing urban and rural folks together.
The match, one of Canada’s largest outdoor shows, moves to a different site in Ontario each year, promoting community spirit and bringing economic activity and tourists with it.
Musical entertainment each day is supplemented with diverse events such as a rodeo, dancing tractors (you have to see them to believe them), an auctioneers’ talk-off, quilt competitions and cooking demonstrations.
Visitors will be able to browse the wares of more than 600 vendors who set up in Tent City, a temporary community complete with streets, avenues, electricity and water supply.
The IPM runs from Tuesday to Saturday next week near the village of Finch. Do an online search for International Plowing Match for more details.