The Hawera Star. SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1927. DAIRY RESEARCH.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 7 May 1927, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1927. DAIRY RESEARCH.

Delivered every evening by 5 •/clock in Hawera, Manaia, Normanby, Okaiawa. Eltham. Mangatoki. Kaponga, Alton Hurleyville, Patea, Waveriey, Mokoia. Whakamara, Ohangai. Meremere. Prasei Eoad and Ararata

The announcement that the Government has completed its plans for the establishment of a national dairy research laboratory and that it will carry on in the meantime with the facilities it finds to its hand in Hawcra and Hamilton, makes very welcome reading to everybody in the Dominion, but to none will it appeal more strongly than to the people of this province, where dairying is the staple industry. One of the three visitors who were in South Taranaki this week making preliminary investigations in connection with the scheme said that, though the farmers were at first a little suspicious of science and what it could do for the man who milks a herd of cows, the men on the land had overcome their prejudices and now realised that the industry, and with the industry they themselves, could be greatly benefited by the work of the scientists. It is gratifying to know that those to whom the work is to bo entrusted arc finding a spirit of helpfulness and optimism among the farmers, but it -would have been worse than disappointing had it boon otherwise. . If the farmers did not welcome this attempt being made by the Government to place the . industry on a scientific basis and bring New Zealand into line with the other butter and choose producing countries of the world, their attitude would have been a sad reflection upon the intelligence of the farming community generally and would have meant that little had been accomplished by the expenditure of Government money upon an Agricultural Department and upon other organisations brought into being solely for the purpose of improving the lot of the farmer and, through him, the prosperity of the country. But, in the main, the farmer of New Zealand realises full well that he cannot expect to compete successfully against the rest of the world if ho is not prepared to receive with an <?pcn mind the results of those who have given years of their lives to studying his problems. We have only to remember the perturbation which was aroused when it was made known that the Government contemplated taking from Taranaki one of its agricultural instructors to realise that the farmer

of to-day values the work of science at

its true worth., and there is every ground for believing that our farmers will await the results of the work of the research laboratory with interest, whereas a generation ago they would have protested in a loud voice at the mere suggestion that public money and their money should be spent upon the maintenance of a staff of scientists whose work would be to tell them how best to farm their land. That day has gone, and it is not only the younger farmer who realises it, for some of the most far-sighted men in the industry arc some who were brought up in the hard school of experience and who might be expected to look with a suspicious eye upon anything that a laboratory has to teach them. If he has learned nothing else from his contact with foreign producers on the markets of the world, the farmer has certainly learned that the production of first-class butter and cheese and the holding of the overseas market, which buys and judges on quality and not on sentiment, is not a haphazard matter of good land and hard work. He has been shown by Denmark, a nation old in the ways of dairying and commerce, and is being shown by Argentina, a later comer to the ranks of the producing nations, that the agriculturist and the pastoralist cannot afford to ignore the scientist; it is not sufficient that the farmer should possess land upon which the grass grows freely, for it has been found that even Nature can become exhausted; nor is it enough to buy cattle indiscriminately in the open market, nor to pour the milk into the separator and expect the buyers of the world’s dairy produce to do the rest. There has to be a continuous effort to improve farming and marketing methods, and that way cannot be found by the man on the land without the help of the man in the laboratory. This assistance is now to be given, thanks to a Government which has been going quietly to work on the subject and not delaying progress to respond to the gestures of its political rivals, some of whom are now making a belated attempt to convince the farmer that his only hope of salvation is to entrust them with his future.