BOYS AND THE WAR.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue LXXIV, 10 August 1917, Page 3

BOYS AND THE WAR.

GOOD WORK IN THE SOUTH JiiLAND.

w G> Prtcaithly, headmaster of the Waimate District High School,- has written to Mr,J. A. Frostick, National •fctticienfty Commissioner for Canterbury, supplying particulars of an interesting .experiment, with boy labor in the Waimate couiyty. The Willowbridge district of the county is one of the largest potatogrowing areas in the Dominion. The xiistrict High School, for some years, has specialised in agriculture, and the services of the older boys were offered to fanners who wished to get their pot<ttot>s out in order to sow dvwn the tields in winter wheat, and who were taced with a scarcity of labor. The farmers at first receiv.ed the. suggestion coldly, but a few decided to give the experiment a trial. Fina"/ Mr W. Hayman, who had a crop of about forty aces, agreed to take a team of twelve boys, feed them and house them, and pay them 8s a day each to lift his crop. Mr Hayman spent a day or two showing the boys how he wished the grading and picking up to be done. At the end of the third day, he found that, each l^oy could do as much work as a aian. In twelve days the team of twelve boys, whose ages range from ten years to sixteen years, lifted 3000 sacks of potatoes. Two men were employed to shake and sew the sacks and the potatoes were dug with a potato digger. Alter the results of Mr Hayman's trial became known, the headmaster was .besieged with applications for boys, and the supply ran short of the demand. Between sixty and seven.ty boys; including those working on \their own farms, spent their holidays in that way. It is estimated that tliey lifted over 6000 sacks of potatoes. Out of the three weeks, there were only twelve days on which they could work, and it is believed that if it had not been for the wet weather, they would have lifted 10,000 sacks. The pupils of the school have cultivated on their experimental plots potatoes, turnips and mangolds. The County Council has given them the free use of another piece of ground, to take out a crop of potatoes during the coming season. # Thirty boys spend their Saturdays receiviug instruction in woolclassing, picking-up, rolling, and other work connected with wool, and Mr Pitcaithly has offered their services to the Commissioner during the shearing season. Some of them did the classing in the sheds of the district last year, and buyers submitted veiy gratifying reports on their work.