Farmers And The Centennial

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25638, 29 October 1948, Page 6

Farmers And The Centennial

The Amuri branch of Federated Farmers is to be congratulated on its efforts to ensure that the farming community of Canterbury takes a direct and significant part in the provincial Centennial celebrations. Its proposals for farming competitions, outlined to the North Canterbury executive on Wednesday, will now be submitted to the other branches in this district. It is to be hoped that any which cannot fully approve them will spare no pains to find generally acceptable modifications or alternatives. For there is a very real danger, as Mr L. R. C. Macfarlane emphasised, that the celebration of the Centennial may be concentrated in the city; and this seems the best suggestion yet advanced to ensure that the Centennial means something not merely to the country people on a visit to Christchurch but to the farmers, their families, and their employees at home. Mr Macfarlane did not elaborate the suggestion for competitions for the most tidy farms except to say that the idea was to have “a general tidying up of “ places ”, Obvious though the difficulties are, the scheme is so attractive that the attempt should be made to overcome them. Some practical farmers may be inclined, at first, to say that appearances do not matter; yet the fact is that the efficiency of the best-managed farms is usually obvious. “ Tidy ”, a word of many meanings, is often

used in a special sense by farmers. When they speak of a tidy farm they do not mean a farm that would appeal to the eye of the artist or even the suburban gardener; they mean a healthy farm on which good husbandry is apparent in the condition of the land, the buildings, the stock, the fences and gates, in the efficient control of pests, and in the maintenance and housing of implements. If the AmUri proposals are designed to promote this kind of tidiness, nothing but good can come ©f their being accepted and pursued by the farmers of the province.