FARMING METHODS'

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 69, 15 December 1923, Page 7

FARMING METHODS'

ARE WE MAKING THE MOST OF OUR HERITAGE ? At a social gathering held at the .conclusion of the annual meeting of The Dominion Fanners’ Institute, Ltd., last week. Sir James Wilson, in a reminiscent strain, reviewed the progress of the Dominion since the landing of the Rev. Samuel Marsden. Coming: to a country that bountifully provided everything required for man’s happiness. he doubted whether it could Lo said that we had made the most of a great heritage. The immense foresis of tho Dominion had been carelessly swept away, and in many cases from land which could never produce any better crop than trees, and which was now producing a crop of weeds. Wo had not dealt fairly with such lands, and it’ was for the present and sue; eeeding generations to make this gooa. There was a deplorable lack of the study of nature in our primary schools, also in the means of imparting scientific knowledge to producers, said Sir James. In this respect we were a long wav behind other countries. Not only must we have proper teachers, but we required the means of training an ever-increasing number of them. Knowledge of the relation of plant life to the soil was necessary to successful farming. We had, in a rough-and-ready way, learned to . produce certain crops, but science must be called to our aid. New Zealand had produced Sir Ernest Rutherford, one of the foremost scientists of the world. Wo must roar more of such men. The speaker further stressed the enormous wastage caused by weeds. Mr. James Begg (Dunedin), in moving a hearty vote of thanks to Sir ■‘James Wilson, gave an interesting account of modern methods of farming as practised iu America, from which country ho had lately returned. Iho boys' agricultural clubs there actually undertook the whole management of their own. agricultural shows, and the interest thus engendered ensured love for a country life. Mr. Ewen A. Campbell spoke of tho hardships of tho early pioneers and tho primitive farming methods c.t righty years ago. Mr A. Leigh Hunt made a, surtion ‘which was generally accepted, namely, tlmt facilities shou d be granted by the institute fol the collection and recording of data to the early history of agriculture in the Dominion.