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Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXI, Issue 279, 9 November 1931, Page 9

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NOVEL TRAINING FARM. NO MACHINERY USED. Glasgow, October 27. Broadfield, at Symington, in Lanarkshire, the Catholic Land Association’s centre for the trai-ing of men and boys in farming, is conducted on a novel principle. No agricultural machinery of any type is used, all the work being done with manual labour with the assistance of three horses. At one time charitable people offered free gifts of tractors and so forth to the association, but these were respectfully but firmly declined. Even the offer of a mowing machine for haymaking was refused. Th e sowing of crops is done by hand, and the reaping with a scythe. Broadfields consists of 220 acres, and on this area over twenty men and boys are being trained. “We desire that our colonists should learn to be farmers, not 'bus drivers. We want to see the lads working, and not watching a machine do the work.” That expresses the ideal of the association, and accordingly they are trying to run the farm without a machine. They want to preserve the ancient handicrafts. The ideal of the association may be excellent for accustoming the trainees to hand work (and even in these days of mechanical aid successful farming still demands plenty of that), but it is to be feared that if in after life the trainees try to run a farm in accordance with that ideal they will soon be sadly disillusioned.