AGRICULTURAL BOARD BILL

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 17 November 1913, Page 8

AGRICULTURAL BOARD BILL

Mr Wilkinson (Egmont) -I consider ilhe Bib. we are discussing .to-day is a etep forward in the development of :^New Zealand

An-Hon. Member: A small one.

Mr Wilkinson—Yes; r.ot a big ore. And I hope that the length of the Stride be considerably greater a lhtle later. I believe the.e'stablisnraent of a

.Board of Agriculture in New /e&land is a national necessity, and it is only -when w% consider the enorihous export trade that has oeen developed by the Dominion during the -la**, few years that we can estimate the tremendous capacity of New Zealand ;n this respect. I have had the opportunity during'the. last few days of seeing the emviiuous quantity of produce that leaves Wellington, and that has been aa eyeopener to me. I have .ived in this country all my life, and I always thought 1 had a fair grasp of the >iJestion, but when I saw the great quantiti<2s of pro<luce we were sending out of this port alone it proved, an eye-opener, and ,1 lope that before long we shall double ■and treble the amount we are now -sending forward to the Old Land. I was rather,- astonished with the remarks that fell last night from the right honorable the leader of the Opposition in the statement that New Zealand ptac"tically led the world in agriculture,'and iihat if we were to look to oiher countries for a lead we would be pntting /back the hands of the clock.. That seems to me to be an extravagant statement to be made to the House by a gentleman who has held the responsible posi,tion of Minister of Lands, and I believe also of Minister of Agriculture. With ■all my friendly feeling to the farmers of

New Zealand, I am satisfied that we

, have a great deal yet toJearn from |j^ other countries, and that we should have made still more progress than w , have done if we had followed5 scientific ■■>■<-training/ "more closely. The difficulty hitherto/has been to get the advantage of that training. We have had uo college of agriculture. We have in Wellington'the Victoria College, and we find professors there in every line- of Jearning except agriculture. , There is »ot a single professor at that College. who teaches agriculture. An Hon. Member —They leach chemistry. Mr Wilkinson-^-Yes, they teach chemistry, but not agriculture. That is sure- • ly not a, right state of affairs considering that the prosperrfcy of the country is dependent practically wholly upon what we'raise from the soil. We find, as the honorable member for Ashburtou -said, that these colleges in New Zealand are turning out dentists, doctors, *md other professional men, but not teachers of agriculture that we can send into different districts to educate the farmers. The f question we have to consider is, will tnis Bill do the work re/ quired '? Does it go far enough:-' Auo not think it does. I am of opinion we should have gone'forward in a bolder v>ay, ana more definite provision snouid have been made; 1 do not think tnat a ixxiy oi eignt. men taken irom both islands, ana men who are not to he paid, viu be able to grapple with this question in its entirety, iiut certainly iv is a start, and the Bill can only be looked on in the direction of a start in -tne work that has to be done. I believe we need at least one college in tho 2sorth island, and one in the South Island, and these colleges, when they are established, should be placed in some •central locality, preferably by a rail-way-line, and handy to land' tnat might he used for actual developmental work. Just to show the necessity for further scientific knowledge in connection with -dairying, we find that in New Zealand we-have 633,000 cows being milked, and the estimated yield of butter-fat per tow is 160 lb. That is an estimate, ,of course: and in one district where tests Jhave been made the average for the district has been 201 lb, of fat per cow. And the average of the ten best herds ' of the 6ame locality is 271 lb. of butterfat per cow, or a difference of 70 lb., simply between the best herds of that district and the average for the whole lot. It seems to be a fair thing to assume here that with a little care selec/ tion, and testing we can uplift the output of all the cows milked in New Zealand —that we could bring the whole lot of them up to the 271 lb. of butter-fat per cow ; at least, which would increase the value of the produce yearly by over two millions of money. That, I think is a very serious problem for dairy-farm-ers, and one :n which the college no ■doubt could assist by giving the farmers actual den onstrations, or give them "proper guidance by advising them on j 11 matters appertaining to that industry. It has been mentioned by the member for Riccarton that the soil of New Zealand has become impoverished to a very large extent, and the inference was that manures and fertilisers were not used to any great extent in this country. I find on looking up the imports for 1912 that New Zealand imported over 100,000 tons of fertilisers, valued at over £380,000. And it is fair to assume that the, local factories, the freezing companies, and' others are- , turning out an equal quantity and value in fertilisers. That will indicate that over three-quarters' of a million -of moiey per annum is being spent in New Zealand on fei'tilisers, which must of course tend to improve the quality of the soil. We have bad a valuable , -suggestion from the member for Dunediii North; and.l am going to ask the Government to take it into their favorable consideration. And that is we

should, if possible, enter into the busi-

jiess of bringing fertilisers to New JZealand at a cheaper rate. _ Possibly Ye CQUId purchase phosphatic bearing islands referred to by the member for J>unedin North, Mr G. M.- Thomson, at a very low rate, and if the Govern- . ment would enibark in that kind of business they would be doing tliis oountry a great service: I believe we would be able to land manure in large quantities at a very much less rate than the farmers are paying to-day; ■and I also believe that it would be a very popular innovation, and a very good move indeed, because it would add to the wealth and prosperity of this country. Even the workers in the cities woiild feel the advantage, and I think they would support any Government that would take a bold step and go into the matter whole-heartedly. I believe also that we could do much better in the way of importing our potassic manures from Germany. Pot»sh is one of the great requirements of -the soil of this country to-day. We find it so in. my district, and I am sure potash is not nearly so well known as it should be. It, of course, % one of the exoensive elements in fertilisation, *nd practically the only supply is from -Cteraiany In America shiploads of it sire imported from Germany, and we want large quantities here. Possibly eomething could be done by the Minister of Arripulture in the direction ot Importing. this fertiliser at a lower rate. Then we have had a valuable report from the member for Rangitikei presented to the Horse in connection £ith what has been done by the, Government of New South Wales with re- * *uect to: experimental farms and .college work. It appears that m New s^d :- .■■-™*»&££ Lndred students ? ■ through their -colleges every yea*/ In one of them, Murine the past nine years, no u ~f jicientifically trained a»d sent out to

work upon the farms of New South Wales. * It is estimated that 75 per cent of those have become practical farmers, managers, or teachers. I believe we can do a good deal in New Zealand on the same lines. Money can be well spent by the country onthe lines I have indicated. I would like to ask the Minister of Railways not to forget the question of cheap fares for farmers who wish to visit these State institutions. In the railway tariff rates we find that special are given to school parties, factory-workers, friendly societies, and members of registered trades i nions, numbering twenty or more, who wish to make special trips for recreation purposes, who pay for fifty miles return 2s 9d each; whereas if the same number of farmers wish to visit an experimental farm at the same distance they have to ;pay 8s 6d, unless they make special arrangements, when the rate is reduced to 6s 2d. It is certainly a matter that should not' be lost sight of, and the Minister has promised to look into it, but I mention it again so that by no chance he will overlook it. There is one , other principle I would like to 6ee the | Government consider—that is, the es- ! tablishment of a Board of Commerce. I j believe a great deal of _good work could be done by a Board of Commerce, which j would be to the advantage of the people of New Zealand. We have all kinds of | difficulties arising from time to time, j and it is difficult for a Government to j deal always in the right way with com- ' mercial problems as they arise. We have ito consider our mail-services, and onr | shipping services generally, and our markets. These all want looking into from time to time, and contracts want to be made in the interests of the producers^ and I believe a Board of Commerce instituted on the lines of those of other, countries would do a great ideal of good. One of the honorable j members who spoke to-day suggested | that the farmers might do a great deal I by co-operation, and I believe thoroughly in the principle. In the district 1 represent we have farmers who have combined to establish factories for cheese-making, butter-making, baconcuring, and they have even their own sawmills for making their own butterboxes, and now they own their own line of coastal steamships. I believe they wilt eventually go a great deal further, and import and sell to themselves most of the 'stuff they require for the carrying on of their affairs. The spirit of co-oper-(ation is one that is growing, and I believe it will grow in this Dominion for the advantage of the people who really need the advantage of it,. and that is primary producers. Before sitting down I wish to congratulate the Government on bringing forward the Bill. It was referred to a little while back as phe of the Government's broken pledges. Today it is shown that it is a pledge that has not been broken. It was promised about a year ago/ and now we have brought it into actual operation. I congratulate the Government on taking this step forward, and I hope it will go on with increased vigor in the same direction, and next year have a further Bill brought down giving the Government greater powers in the direction of a gricultural development.—Hansard, November 11.