AGRICULTURE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 65, 18 March 1925, Page 11

AGRICULTURE.

COMMISSION AT CANTERBURY! BOYS ON THE FARM. TAUGHT NAUGHT BUT MILKING, j (By Telegrapn.—Press Association.} CHRI ST. CHURCH, Tuesday. , "Effect will have to be given to the representations made to the Education ; Department and the New Zealand Uni- I versity from time to time during the I past ten years for bettor laboratory | accommodation and teaching staff, and ' for extended living accommodation. ' , This was a sentence in evidence given ■ on behalf of the Canterbury Agricul- : tural College before the Board of Agri- j culture Commission, which sat at Christ- j church to-day. Mr. H. A. Knight, chairman of the Board of Governors of | Canterbury Agricultural College, presented » statement describing the college and the handicaps under which it laboured. A member of the commission remarked that a suggestion had been made that the boys should spend some rears on a farm before attending the college and thus the practical work at the "college could be cut down. The j director of the college, Mr. E. Alexander, replied that on most farms the I liov's were only rouseabouts. They learned only to milk cows. The next witness was Mr. Frank Tate, Director of Education in Victoria. He said that education in agriculture had started in Victoria before an agricultural college had been set up at all At the present time there were two college farms, one near Melbourne, and the other some distance away. The tendency was to have both the practical and research work carried out near the university and the result was that a great proportion of the farm work was \x\ntr done near Melbourne. It was recognised in Victoria that the closest co-operation should exist between the university and the Agricultural Department. Agriculture was taught with strikingly good effect in many of the primary" schools. There were group supervisors, and each school had its own plot for cultivation. The teaching took the form of nature study and agriculture, and groat enthusiasm had been shown by the pupils. The commission visited Lincoln Agricultural College in the afternoon.