CLUB FORMED IN EGYPT

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 195, 14 May 1940, Page 10

CLUB FORMED IN EGYPT

Young Farmers With N.Z.E.F. “Club memberships in all districts are depleted because of members going overseas, and doubtless before the war is over they will be even more so, 'but the news from their comrades in Egypt will do much to stimulate the efforts of those remaining behind on the home front,” said the Dominion organizing secretary of the New Zealand Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs, Mr. S. Freeman, commenting yesterday on the action of several dub members, now with the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force, in forming a club in Egypt. Lieutenant-Colonel C. J. Pierce, 2nd Division Cavalry Regiment, Egypt, in a letter to the Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Lee Martin, comments ou the work as follows: —“The members of young farmers’ dubs in my regiment have formed a dub here and got in touch with the Department of Agriculture, and last Sunday they conducted us over their State farm in Cairo. This week they are arranging for us to visit, the Royal Agricultural Show. The officials of the State farm have been most helpful and courteous. As I have several members of the New Zealand Department of Agriculture in my regiment it is trlso most valuable to them.”

Air. P. G. Thevenard, of the Kim'bol-ton-Kiwitea Young Farmers’ Club, has received a letter from his brother, Trooper R. H. Thevenard, 2nd Divisional Cavalry Regiment, N.Z.E.F., which says: "We have formed here a Young Farmers’ Club, consisting mainly of memlbers of the organization, and we have got. about 80 to join so far. One of our officers is very keen on the movement, and the Colonel is also eager to see us do our stuff. One of our chaps who was at Massey College got into touch with the local Director of Industrial Research, and we are going out next Sunday to see the Plant Research Station at Gizeh (near the Pyramids). They are very progressive with their cotton, and do not allow any inferior seed whatever to be sold or"planted; all is tested and certified. They have model factories for extracting olive oil and oil of roses, tinning fruits, beans and tomatoes. Any industry they wish to start is first of all tried out: in miniature at this station. Other trips have been arranged to cotton mills, industrial factories aud works, irrigation schemes, poultry farms, cropping experimental areas and a horse-breeding establishment. We are also to inspect a date-stoning and sterilizing plant.” Mr. Freeman said these letters were a tribute to the keenness of memliers in Egypt. lu spite of the many handicaps of war conditions the movement iu New Zealand was still going ahead-