FARM TRAINING

Evening Star, Issue 20996, 9 January 1932, Page 10

FARM TRAINING

FOR UNEMPLOYED BOYS A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT FOLLOWING A FAILURE WELLINGTON, January 9. The problem of the unemployed boy is being tackled by the Wellington Y.M.C.A. in a practical way at Penrose Farm, near Masterton, in the Wairarapa. This experiment, which has the help of the Wellington and Masterton Rotary Clubs, has been running for nearly a fortnight, and appears likely to succeed. It follows closely on a failure. When it was necessary to provide many returned soldiers with farm training, a number of patriotic Wairarapa farmers started a trailing farm at Penrose, and excellent permanent buildings were provided. The scheme ran for a time, and in due course the supply of trainees ceased. It was then thought desirable to make Penrose a centre for practical farm training of secondary school pupils', and the Government’s aid was enlisted. The former Minister of Agriculture, Mr Murdoch, was impressed with the possibilities of Penrose in giving practical effect to the much-desired “ agricultural bias ” in our education, and the Government backed with a £5,000 grant a scheme under which the Education and Agricultural Departments were prepared to co-operate in giving instruction to selected pupils from the secondary schools of the Wairarapa. The scheme was explained to parents and pupils, and a good deal of publicity given to this promising experiment. Unfortunately it failed at the preliminary stage, for there were onlyeight boys in the whole district who were prepared to undergo the course of training. CITY LADS’ OPPORTUNITY. So Penrose buildings remained empty, and the Farmers’ Committee carried on the valuable, farm in the ordinary commercial way, under the management of a competent employee. The Y.M.C.A. in Wellington found that not the least problem associated with unemployment was that of the idle boy, and when one of its prominent workers, Mr Will Appleton, suggested the organisation of farm camps for unemployed boys, the possibilities of Penrose were thought of and the ‘‘ failure ” of some months ago revived under different auspices. There is to be no Government grant, but a good deal of private help in money and food, together with splendid personal assistance from the Y.M.C.A. workers, and the active co-operation of officers of the Department of Agriculture. The aim at Penrose is to take lads from the city give them a month or so of camp lire with constant instruction and nealthful exercise, and find homes for them with farmers, ho should find the camp boys quite handy as a result of their practical education. About a hundred boys can _ be taken, but there is a strict selective system which has already weeded out many who were not prepared to take up farm work at the end of the training. Quite a number who were found to regard Penrose as a holiday camp have been sent home. As a selective method, the boys on arrival are invited to undertake an intensive course of agricultural instruction, and are frankly told that the practical requirements of farm life mean that they must “ tumbleout” at 6 a.m. to attend to animals, and that although they will not be required to work a full twelve hours a day, their farm jobs will not be completed until 6 p.m. _ Out of eighty-five boys who started in the camp, forty-two at once volunteered for the intensive course, and so popular has been the instruction that it has been divided into three divisions. THE TRAINING SYSTEM. Training starts with lectures on farm subjects by inspectors of the Department of Agriculture, These are phrased in simple language, with a close eye to the practical. For instance, when the instructor talks of pasture grasses'hfe has in the lecture room a series of boxes containing the most important varieties, and at a certain stage of the talk adjourns to the nearest paddock, carrying a box containing growing timothy. “Now, boys,” says the instructor, “ here’s timothy—-you see what it looks like. Go around this paddock and bring me back some samples.” This is the vivid method which enables a city boy to quickly pick out important grasses and identify weeds by name. A small herd of cows has been loaned to give the boys practice in hand milking, and then they are to be drafted to neighbouring farms where machine milking is conducted. Ploughing and the management of horses is being taught, and also practical fencing. There has been haymaking, and in due course some of the arable land

will require to be worked up, which will give the boys additional experience* One of the instructors declared to your correspondent that he is extremely pleased at the enthusiasm shown by the boys, and is sure that after a short course in camp they will become very handy on any farm. Camp life is organised on Boy Scout lines, with divisions and subdivisions down to the point which gives a lad responsibility for the behaviour of his two tent-mates. Finance is a problem with youths whose parents have been in many cases unable to provide them with suitable clothing, but ready help has been forthcoming from sympathisers, both in respect to clothing and supplies. Most of the staff work is being done free, so that the training,; while effective, is not throwing a burden on the Unemployment Board or the Government. After the camp has been running for another few weeks the Y.M.C.A. will invite the farmers of the district to attend a “people’s day,” when the effort to provide farm homes for the lads will receive, further stimulus The organisers are very hopeful of being able to place the boys, and if this turns out to he the case there is no reason why Penrose should not train a constant stream of city boys, diverting them from the street corners to the healthful and useful life on the land.