FARM SCHOOLS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVIII, Issue 12935, 1 October 1902, Page 9

FARM SCHOOLS.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —In your leaderette of Sept. 24 you bring to tli© notice of the public that we are behind England in providing efficient schools of farm training. I notice that in the list of subjects forestry is not included, at which I wonder much, not where home staying Englishmen are concerned, but for the sake of the young men or women Who go to new countries. If New Zealand does, or rather, when she does provide the training you speak of I hope trees and their planting will occupy a foremost place. It has several times been pointed out to us the great national value of special kinds of trees for the timbers which are scarce, and getting scarcer, also from a climatic point of view of trees generally. Some time a.go a. suggestion was made that the State should have planted the land laid waste by the Tarawera emiption. Has nothing been done there? The New Zealanders who stayed back to look into things in South Africa are coming home we hear. This is another piece of work for strong men and some who are not, of great amd permanent value to the State. The Government has appointed several expensive commissions; why not get all the information such men as Mr T. W. Adams and Mr L. Cockayne cap give them in the planting of native trees for future use, not for use only in the two ways I speak of, but for the beautifying of our land as the coming tourist resort for wealthy British and American families when they are looking for something new and healthgiving? What an income for New Zealand and her people!—l am, etc., S. G.