NEW ZEALAND’S RURAL LIFE

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25084, 16 January 1947, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND’S RURAL LIFE

8.8. C. AGRICULTURAL DIRECTOR’S PLEA Agriculture to-day was not regarded sufficiently as an art or humane subject, but was taught as a pseudoscience with more emphasis on the formal sciences, said Mr John Green, director of agricultural broadcasts for the 8.8. C., in a broadcast address on Tuesday. „ x . “The average college-trained farmer can set a plough, but he does not know how, or under wfaat conditions, the mouldboard was developed to its present pattern,” said Mr Green. “He knows where to sow Cross 7, but he ; does not know what yields of wheat the Romans obtained or in what latitudes they grew them. He grows enough swedes, if he is in Southland, to carry his stock through the winter, but he never thinks what 'happened on the mediaeval manor or why men danced round the Maypole. He breeds pedigree cattle and sheep, but he is ignorant of the life of Robert Bakewell or Thames Bates. “Hard and Lonely Exile” “He has learned how to take down several makes of tractor, and the working mechanics of the binder, but he doesn’t know how Jethro Tull came to invent the drill or the principles of Bell’s reaper. He feels that civilisation is drawing to an interesting climax, and that the role of agriculture hag increased in importance, but he has only heard of Virgil as a Latin poet and possibly never of the Georgies. So our farm graduate goes back to the hard and lonely exile of the bush, to a position of local leadership, with considerable knowledge but little learning—without the resources of a mind instructed in principles and so a prey to every changing fashion in science, politics and economics—and fashions do change, even in 'these august subjects.” Mr Green, whose address was to the Young Farmers’ movement of New Zealand, said that the comment might be made that the New Zealand “cocky” was financially the most successful in the world and had nothing to learn from how a few peasants lived as brutds hundreds of years ago. His reply was that if the people were satisfied with the morale of the countryside there was really no need for a Young Farmers’ Club movement. He had been impressed with the fortitude and resourcefulness of rural life in the New World. The work of the women was amazing. But there was alw’ays something about the home, in spite of its efficiency and hygiene, that lacked the warmth of life in Europe. Hence his plea to the next generation for a more humane attitude in rural life to value advantages and not abuse them, and to use them not only in their place and season, but m their time in human history. Rural Outlook Stating that the foremost object of the movement should be to enhance the quality of rural outlook, Mr Green said that the morale of rural life in Britain had been a decisive factor in the common victory, and had had little to do with the farmers’ technical efficiency but had sprung.from wells fed by human conduct for centuries. New Zealanders had a clean start in rural settlement in inheriting, the tradition but not the customs of those in Europe who gave rural life a dignity, and the techniques but not the habits of those who overcame its drudgery. Against this, people of the New World had to rely on themselves, as they were largely without those influences in church and State that might help to secure their prestige. Adaptation of the Countryside to a changing world required knowledge and leadership. Farmers were trustees of the land as well as food producers. , J • “I hope that no producer of food m New Zealand will ever have to strike for his rights,” Mr Green said, “but I hope he will be such a force in local and national affairs that he will assure a dreadful retribution visits any section of the community that neglects or harms the, land of New Zealand.