FARM PRIZES WON BY ENGLISH GIRLS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue XLVIII, 12 January 1924, Page 9

FARM PRIZES WON BY ENGLISH GIRLS.

PARTY OF FOUR TOUR CAJNJAI>A AND INVESTIGATE AGRICULTURAL CONDITIONS THERE.

J (Monitor Bureau.) 1 ( - Tlie four English girl farmers who, early this spring, were .awarded the | special Bcholarehip tour 'in Canada : offered by Sir Henry Thornton, presi--1 dent of the Canadian National llail- ! ways, have now returned to England, j and will shortly make a round of the j farmers' clubs of Great Britain in order to describe their experiences. Miss Stella Wolfe Murray, who chaperoned the girls while in Canada, said: — The object of the scholarships was to arouse general interest in Canada a« the foremost agricultural Dominion •within the British Empire. Their five months' tour will enable the girls to , place effectively before the agricultural population of~T3reat Britain tho facts relating to farming and other conditions in the Dominion. The conditions of the scholarship were very strict, the j Judges being selected from among the most noted authorities on agriculture in the United Kingdom, while the competitors included practically all the girl | members of the various farmers' clubs. ; Tho final selection was made by the president of the National Farmers^ Union y assisted by representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Board of Trade. The ages of the prizewinners range . from 14 to 18. Joan Moor© j '(Leicestershire), who. is 14 years old, bas^ raised calves which have won in national competitions. Ivy Townsend (Surrey) is 16, and a winner of the silver medal of th© British Dairy Association for judging cows. Mildred . White (Devonshire) is 18, and a nrstpris&e winner for team-cow judging. Emma Absolon (Middlesex), who is 1? \ t years old, holds the Apis Club medal [ I for bee-keeping, and has also carried" off honours from the Royal Horticul- * tural Society. Their chaperon, Miesij Wolfe Murray, is a well-known Eng- , . li&h journalist, and a lineal descendant! of €^n«ral the Hon James Murray, first Governor-General for Canada for" Great ' Britain. , { The party remained in Canada about , i five months, during which the girl , 1 farmers were given fall opportunity i to investigate Canadian farming condi- , tions in their various phases, including tho grain farms of the west, the stock ,' < and dairy farms of Ontario, and inten- } sive farming as carried on in the east. In addition, seven agricultural colleges were vieited, and two short courses of study were pursued at the agricultural colleges at Manitoba and Ontario. In almost every place the girl farmers received «. public ovation, and were received by the Prime Minister of Canada, the Governor-Oeneral and Lady Byng, the Minister of Agriculture for each province visited, and also by the deans of five universities. At the Canadian National Exhibition, Toronto, and the London Fair, Ontario, the girls entered for a beef stock judging competition and carried off a prize. Until then, girls had never been permitted to enter, or even to train, for stockjudging contests in Canada.