A SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XI, Issue 4021, 1 October 1874, Page 3

A SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE.

To the E'litor of tIie,HERALD. Sir,—lt would be very interesting to race a farm, in 2few Zealand worked on a system of higli cultivation. It would also be a satisfaction to have this vexed question settled, namely, Will high farming pay in New Zealand My answer to the question is that it is useless to attempt to compete with landholders. Ido not call them farmers who adopt the plan carried 011 in all new countries, that is, of exhausting then- farms and when this is done buying fresh ones and exhausting these also. Yon allude to the encouragement given to the Agricultural College in America. The farmers in the State of Massachusetts do not seem to have derived much benefit from those colleges. The cultivators of the land in that State are going through the same trials and experiences as the farmers in the neighbourhood of Auckland. An American rejoort says : "The land has diminished ill productiveness within the last twenty years. Few farmers are making more than a living at the business. Almost all our old farmers have left their farms and moved into the villages. What has driven them off is high taxes, the high pi-ice of labour, aiid the general deterioration of the soil. It is all up with small iar* 1 i 11 o> and large farming with. small Both modes imply small profits, and men are too impatient of slow returns to invest capital in such ways. The meaning of all this is clearly to be seen, namely, that the farmers in this State of Massachusetts have taken all they are able to get out of their land, and they cannot afford to cultivate or manure their farms properly. Tliey could cot sell their produce so as to compete with those formers who have unexhausted soils in other States." We have persons here who understand farming; they have little or nothing to learn from Agricultural Colleges ; but they do not see their way to adopt a high system of farming. They see no chance of such a system paying, and without manure and good farming all land must become more or less deteriorated. Manure is to a farm what daily food is to an animal; it must be procured at any sacrifice. It is better to let land remain uncultitatcd, in rough pasture, as was once the case with a, great part of Britain, and is still the ease with extensive tracts on the continent, than to break it up witlout having the means of manuring it'; a fev crops may be obtained at iirst, but the and is deteriorated for ever after.—l am, fee., i Auricula.