SCIENCE AND LAND

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 182, 1 May 1931, Page 10

SCIENCE AND LAND

Teachings of Research SOUND INVESTMENT Governor-General’s Advice Dominion Special Service. Palmerston North, April 30. Science and its application to agriculture was discussed by the 1 GovernorGeneral, Lord Bledisloe, at the opening of the new science block at the Massey Agricultural College at Palmerston North to-day. His Excellency considered that it would be economic suicide for New Zealand to turn a blind eye to the latest teachings of science. “Science is well defined as systematised knowledge as demonstrated by induction, experiment or observation,” said his Excellency. “Its ramifications are many and its value depends upon the extent to which it augments the happiness and well-being of the human race, and this necessarily varies with the objectives, spiritual, ethical and industrial, of different countries. “In New Zealand, industrially, the best possible utilisation of the land with tl|p profitable output of land products of the highest quality and consistent uniformity is indisputably 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 conferred greater favours, from none has it received such small acknowledgment. “Economic Suicide.” “For a country competing in its land products in the open markets of the world with those of other countries conversant with and practising the latest teachings of science to turn a blind eye to the lessons of the scientist is to. commit economic suicide. Even the most impoverished countries of the world have . found publie expenditure upon scientific research and the scientific guidance of their farming population to be a sound and remunerative national investment. But for its justification such systematised knowledge must not be confined within the boundaries of colleges and research stations, but must radiate freely among all grades of the farming population and be transmitted in simple intelligible language free of all technical jargon and accompanied where necessary by. dexterous manual demonstration. “Moreover, while allocating to certain institutions specialised activities in various branches of agricultural science there must be, in order to ensure the fullest fruition aud financial economy, a generous measure of team work, both among individual workers and among institutions, and the discouragement of overlapping, duplication of effort, or trenching upon , spheres of investigation outside their proper ambit, and claiming financial support from the public purse in competition with other institutions better equipped than themselves in personnel and plant. No Monopoly. “There must similarly be no monopoly of agricultural knowledge as _ between the various countries of the British Empire. This was unanimously recognised and acted upon at the Imperial Agricultural Research Conference over which I presided in Westminster Hall in the autumn of 1927.” Reference was made by his Excellency to the several Imperial bureaux engaged in phases of agricultural science. “What branches of so-ealled agricultural science, it may be asked, are of most importance, under present world conditions, to New Zealand in general and to this North Island and Massey College in particular?” he continued. “Unhesitatingly, I place first that which, when I was an agricultural student and indeed until recent years, found no place in the curriculum of an agricultural college, viz., agricultural economics. For it is conceivable that New Zealand farmers may raise on their holdings butter, cheese, meat, wool or fruit of the highest quality, and yet fail through defective organisation or faulty methods of marketing to make a living out of its production, even at a time when their foreign competitors are successful in doing so out of similar products of inferior quality. Zeal of Agricultural Scientists. “This country,” he said, in conclusion, “is fortunate in the outstanding ability and zeal of its agricultural scientists, especially those connected with the Cawthron Institute and Lincoln and Massey Agricultural Colleges, I venture to hope that during the forthcoming period of unprecedented rural development and intensification of farm practice, patriotism and creative pride in their special problems of investigation will operate—in face of tempting financial inducements from more affluent countries —to retain their services for the lasting benefit of their native land. “New Zealand needs all the best intellects of her children in every walk of life for her own ordered and progressive development. She is intensely proud of her Rutherfords, but she can ill spare them nowadays to other nations without detriment to her own ‘aedification. Science, like industry, should as far as possible find its customers and achieve its reputation in its own local environment.”