YOUNG FARMERS LEAD

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 151, 29 June 1938, Page 12

YOUNG FARMERS LEAD

The presence in Wellington of some ninety members of the Young Farmers' Club movement from dilferent districts in the southern half of the North Island should impress the people in the city with some idea of the importance of what is now a flourishing institution in tho country. The success of tne movement is one of the most promising and encouraging developments of-recent times in New Zealand's rural life. From small beginnings it has extended by a natural growth to almost every part of the Dominion, and the number of clubs and their membership today render the movement a most valuable factor in promoting a love of the land, enhancing the social amenities of the countryside, fostering a practical scientific knowledge of farming, and ensuring a continuity of attachment to the soil as a career. Members of Young Farmers' Clubs not only meet to discuss their problems! in their own districts, but, when the opportunity arises, as during the off season, when they can be spared from work on the farm, travel far afield, visiting the cities—as t.hey are now visiting Wellington—-other districts in the Dominion, and even crossing the Tasman for a tour of Australia, as they did last summer. The effect on these young men, the farmers of tomorrow, must be extraordinarily broadening to the mind and beneficial all round. The old isolation of the countryside, which drove so many farmers' sons to seek careers in the city, disappears with the establishment of these clubs which have transformed country life. Some idea of their activities may be gathered from the monthly issues of the "New Zealand Journal of Agriculture," which acts as a common medium of publicity for them. It is clear that they serve the purpose very effectively of the Danish folk-school under the widely different conditions of New Zealand country life. ' The movement is an outstanding example! of what can be done by voluntary association in the common interest] without State direction.