Talk yourself around the Devon County Show and you end up a walking encyclopedia on everything from agriculture to
Agas.
The downside to such instant knowledge is sore feet. Covering the diverse aspects of this vast extravaganza criss-crossed with tent and stand lined avenues takes stamina and a good sense of direction.
These days there seems a perceptible shift away from livestock and a growing emphasis on celebrating West Country produce.
As usual there is enough variety to suit all tastes. While the latest in modern ?heavy metal? farm machinery paraded ? headlights blazing ? before an admiring public, vintage exhibits reminded us how it once was.
Robert Yelland from Okehampton was showing a pre-war International Tractor which he rebuilt over four years. He bought the machine ? which runs on caterpillar tracks ? to pull his father Tony Yelland?s 1911 Marshall Steam engine. ?It was a portable power plant used by the South End Water Works for pumping water,? says Tony.
?It is not self-propelling. It is the predecessor of the traction engine.?
He bought it from a man in Exbourne who acquired it in 1979 from a North London scrapyard where it had been languishing since 1938.
?I bought it in 1982 and it took 12 years to restore,? said Tony.
?They get into your blood as well as your pocket. You light it up and it hisses and screeches and bubbles. It was once a way of life.?
Chugging cheekily between these simmering leviathons was Lew Lewis who had down-sized from the real thing to a model 4-ins MacLaren.
?The same name as the racing car ? but not made by the same firm,? he quips, acknowledging its very sedate acceleration.
I had a full-size roller but I was getting a bit old so I sold it and bought something a bit smaller!?
The goat owning boom of several years ago seems to have waned ? partly due to the movement restrictions still operating after foot and mouth.
Alan Butcher from the Devon Goat Society said difficulties arose if a goat had to be moved to another location for breeding.
?The restrictions would mean you would have to board the goat at the receiving premises which mean additional costs. You cannot just put one in a new herd ? they have quite strong hierarchy and dominance so it takes a while for them to settle in.?
A fan of the Nubian breed, he says they were once used in sailing ships for fresh milk ? that?s how the breed originally came to Britain.
And the secret of good goats? milk? Alan says it is in the cooling.
?A lot of commercial goats? milk isn?t cooled fast enough. There is bacteria in the milk and if you don?t cool it quickly it isn?t killed off. By putting it in cold water there is a sharp drop in temperature ? but if you put it in the fridge there is a slow drop. It is the initial cooling that is the key.?
A walk away from the livestock area with its combination of bleats, baas and moos and your ears are assailed by the impatient rasp of motorcycle stunt rider Jason Smyth?s machine.
In the main ring he was limbering up ? making his bike bow and beg before roaring up a ramp and flying 40ft into the air.
Devon-based Jason, who began riding bikes when he was seven, has a string of motoring triumphs. But his stunts have not all had happy landings ? he has broken both legs, one in eight places.
From the rasping of exhaust to the ringing of anvils ? at the blacksmiths? stand the clatter of hammers on metal and the glow of the forge drew the crowds. ?Dartmoor? Dave Denford was applying himself to making a pair of hinges.
?You have two hours to do it ? but it is not really about speed, it is about quality and originality,? he said.
Avenues are full of tempting items to purchase. From jacuzzis to exotic jams. At a stand celebrating garden furniture was a love seat romantically priced at £199. A perfect wedding present that, should the couple later divorce, could be cut in half and sold on as a pair of hate seats.
Taking a more ecological stand when it comes to gardens was the Devon branch of the Butterfly Conservation. Here was a confetti of leaflets on how to attract both butterflies and moths.
?They are the biological indicators of the well being of the environment,? says chairman Roger Bristow.
?They are bright and people easily spot them, unlike grasshoppers which are less noticed.?
He said Devon ranked as second or third when it came to the number of varieties in the county, with a total of 41 species.
?The butterfly population has declined dramatically in the last 50 years, partly because of industrial farming and removal of hedgerows. However, there is a wind of change. Farming is getting more environmentally friendly.
?The environment we had in the 50s and before that was very carefully man-made and man-managed. It was sustainable ? man was living off the land but didn?t take too much and the balance was maintained.?
In the flower tent the Royal Horticultural Society was exhibiting for the first time. The theme was the cottage garden and the array of plants came with a rose trellice and wicker fence.
At the Dartmoor Preservation Association tent war had been declared on bracken!
Development officer Drew Butterfield said they were organising their first ?bracken stomp? on June 22 at one of their own sites.
?Rhyzomes from the bracken eat into archaeological sites and they can split them open. We are going with 30 volunteers and we are going to kick the plants because we want them to "bleed". We are going to go back three times over a 12-week period. The aim is to try to disable the plant so it cannot spread further.?
Drew said bracken is a great threat to Dartmoor both ecologically and when it comes to access for walkers and riders.
At the Tesco stand Tina Bricknell-Webb was about to give a cookery demonstration with young student chefs from Percy?s Hotel and Restaurant Academy at Virginstowe.
The petite powerhouse of culinary creativity is dedicated to seeking out the very best of local food.
?If chefs know what to look for in food the whole industry will have to up-skill because you will not get so much shoddy stuff slipping through,? she says.
Tina admits being passionate about food and networking with people.
?You need traceability ? it is incredibly important. I want to know the person who makes my clotted cream; the person who supplies my strawberries . . . It is only when you work with a supplier that you get what you want.?
She says it is important to know about food production. At Percy?s they grow their own salad plants and raise their own stock.
?We want our salad leaves to be a certain size because we want to garnish them for presentation purposes. If we went to buy these leaves they would be about ten times bigger than we want because they have not been grown for a niche market.?
Tina exudes a seemingly unshakable confidence when it comes to culinary matters. It is not arrogance but simple faith in her product. She is, she says, a natural cook, and her catering intuition is spot on.
?I never question my palate because we have a cupboard full of accolades endorsing our food. We have overwhelming customer endorsement ? and if we didn?t we would look at what we were doing wrong. It is a style I have developed, and, the more it is endorsed the more I have developed it.?
With the creation of the Percy?s academy Tina says the aim is not to create lots of Percys around the South West.
?It is to upgrade the middle market food.
?There is a huge potential market.?
In the rabbit tent the talk was not about food but the quality and confirmation of the rows of nose-twitching bunnies. Mentioning rabbit pie would have been as bad taste as calling that ?Scottish play? Macbeth.
Graham Baker who has some 50 rabbits himself and has judged both in Britain and on the Continent believes people can underestimate the intelligence of these cuddly-looking creatures.
?You have to be on their wavelength. I can see what a rabbit is feeling just by looking at the way it is sitting.?
He says you can even relate the does to humans.
?There are the hussies, then the real mothers fussing over their offspring, and then those that don?t give a monkey?s, scattering everything and having their babies everywhere . . .?
Another fancier, when asked why the rabbits were so calm and well behaved in the middle of such show-tent hurly-burly said he always kept a transistor on in their hutches tuned to Radio Four.
?That way they quickly got used to voices and chatter. Some people play Radio One all day ? but my rabbits don?t go to discos!?