AGRICULTURE.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20225, 1 May 1931, Page 10

AGRICULTURE.

■ _4 • APPLICATION OF SCIENCE. A PARAMOUNT NECESSITY. (PUESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM') PALMERSTON NORTH, April 30. The new science block at- Massey College was opened to-day by hi® Excellency the Governor-General in the presence of a large gathering of citizens and farmers. The Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes, the Hon. E. A. Ransom, and members of Parliament also attended. Sir George Fowlds, chairman of the College Council, presided. In declaring the building open, Lord Bledisloe said:— "No task since I entered the Dominion has afforded me more entire satisfaction than that which you have entrusted to me this afternoon, thanks to the prudent generosity of Sir Walter Buchanan, Sir John Logan-Campbell, the New Zealand Government, and the people of Palmerston North. This college, admirably situated, and well equipped with land of varying type, sprang into existence three years ago as the chief centre for the North Island of higher agricultural education and research and has, during its short life, fully justified its inauguration by the steady growth in the number of its students and the practical character and appropriate scope of its curriculum. Today we place the coping stono on its establishment both structurally and institutionally. "In New Zealand the best possible utilisation of the land with a profitable output of land products of the highest quality and consistent uniformity, indisputably is the paramount objective beside which all others pale into relative insignificance. To the attainment of this objective all patriots, whatever their personal vocation, should bend their energies with clear unwavering vision, employing or encouraging science as the chief instrument of its successful realisation. No industry is more dependent upon science for its success, upon none has it received such small acknowledgement.

"For a country competing in its land products in the open markets of the world with those of other cpuntri.es conversant with and practising the latest teachings of science to turn a blind eye to the leßsons of scientists is to commit economic suicide. Even the most impoverished countries of the world found public expenditure upon scientific research and the scientific guidance of their farming population to be a sound and remunerative national investment."