FARM CADETS

Manawatu Times, Volume LXIV, Issue 279, 3 December 1907, Page 4

FARM CADETS

Thkbe is some talk of an English movement in farm cadets for export to the Dominion, as though it were a new idea. It is as old as colonisation. It was in vogne in the Virginian settlements in the days of John Smith and Pocahontas, and some of the most notable men in Australasia were cadets—and many of the less well known hotel rouseabouts. Recollect those delightful reminiscences of Lady Brooine and the Canterbury cadets, and "the jackeroo" has become part and parcel of Australian literature. Hawke's Bay and

the Eangitikei were once great haunts of the cadets whose fond parents paid their hundred guineas or so annually, that the scions of the house might learn station life. The d ifference in many iustances between them and the ordinary station hands was that they ate mutton with the family instead of in the men's hut. Exploiters of settlemei.t like George Vesey Stewart were also great exploiters cadets, though at the once famous Mount Stewart the cadets learnt more billiards than farming. The new order of cadet does not wish to pay a premium. He offers his services instead for the first six months free. Some of the best material amongst the [old cadets, finding that they had to do the work of farm-hands and pay for it instead of being paid, deliberately said goodbye to the "boss's" wife and moved their belongings to the men's hut claiming to be paid and treated as ordinary station hands.