AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume III, Issue 77, 14 March 1913, Page 4

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION.

I During the course of Ins visit to I Ashburton. M>-- Massey has taken occasion to make special reference to the Government Experimental Farms and to hold out some premise of reform in the methods to be adopted. Some radical change is certainly required in order to justify the continuI anee of the expenditure of taxpayers i money apparently necessary for the maintenance of those establishments. I We are not io be taken as suggestI ing that they are not achieving some measure ef good for the community. ' wo contend most strenuously tlim I they might be made to accomplish i much more —and that with but little, hr any. additional cost. At present I these farms are of scarcely any eduI cative value, and to this point wo I venture to think special attont.i.:! | should be directed. On all hands we i see regrets expressed that in t’iuI voting country, as m the old. 1 lie tendency of population towards the I towns is yearly becoming more markI cd. Yet we find no endeavour worthy < f the name made to bring within the knowledge of our youth the possibilities ef both profit and intelligent pleasure to be found in agricultural pursuits. The few who are reached

in the way of instruction by our expensive Agricultural Department are to be found among the adult population only. Very little opportunity is offered for impressing the minds of the young, excepting - possibly the handful of those who are earning their living upon the Government farms. We have more than once endeavoured to arouse interest in the classes which have, under conditions the least encouraging, been formed at our own District High School with a view to primary instruction in elementary agricultural knowldege. Amidst a community, the most prosperous probably in the Dominion, it has been found impossible to raise a comparatively paltry sum for the purchase of a decent piece of ground on which to pursue this instruction. AVere this only done and the efforts of the teachers supplemented by opportunities regularly given to the children to see things being carried out on a somewhat large scale, we might hope to find among the rising generation of a fair proportion whose attention would be directed to rural vocations. If our experimental farms were made available for the instruction of youth, as well’as for the development and proof of the capabilities of our soil, the sphere of their usefulness would be greatly widened. We have little doubt but that those already in charge would be both capable and willing to impart such an amount of practical information and guidance as would' serve at least to stimulate in the children a spirit of enquiry, and this is the first essential step. We would again appeal to our readers to enquire for themselves into the possibilities opened up by the school classes, and to give some practical assistance to what is a most' laudable object. To those who have influence with the Administration we would commend oui- suggestion of making the State Farms available for the instruction of youth.