Agricultural Research.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17728, 3 April 1923, Page 6

Agricultural Research.

Sir Walter Buchanan's munificent offer to Victoria College was made after consultation with Sir Robert Stout as to ih.e appropriateness of such a gift—a precaution that was not quite superfluous. Everyone will agree that Sir Walter has done a splendid service to the Dominion in enabling the Univer--Bity of New Zealand to add agriculture to ita other fields of research. It cannot be doubted either that farmers of all kinds are beginning to realise the connexion between profitable production and agricultural research. Sir Walter has sensed the real need by making Rural Economics with Agriculture the field for investigation. Only a few days ago Mr It. E. Alexander, Director of Lincoln College, spoke very strongly to the Canterbury A. and P. Association on the Dominion's almost complete neglect of agricultural research from the economic standpoint. We believe it is a fact also that the reports of the examiners for degrees in agriculture stress both the importance of such knowledge, and the lack of any proper provision for supplying it, in the courses at present available for Dominion students. The Department of Agriculture has done .& great deal for live stock: New Zealand has the cleanest and healthiest farm animals in the world —not yet, unfor- ! tunately, the best bred—and the achievement is all the more remarkable in the absence of a veterinary college. But comparatively little has been done, Mr Alexander says nothing at all, to show the farmer the meaning of his ordinary operations in pounds, shillings and pence. If Sir Walter Buchanan's gift carries with it a pound for pound subsidy from the Consolidated Fund, it should be possible to give the new professor of Agriculture the assistance of an expert in that neglected branch of knowledge, and this means, of course, that the Govornmflnt or the College, or the Government through the College, will have -

to provide a farm for the purposes of demonstration. But that suggests two dangers. One is that young men will be encouraged to attend Victoria College to learn to farm, v.-hich they cannot of course learn at any college, or anywhere at ail but at the ploughtail and on the shearing-board. The other is that "Wellington, -which is in some respects the least suit-able province for agricultural research, may expect henceforth to have a monopoly in it. The Dominion is unfortunately too small vet for competition in science, and it is necessary to watch lest Sir Walter Buchanan's fine generosity should lead to something different from the benefactor's real intention.