THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 1888.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9036, 20 April 1888, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 1888.

Oue farmers are on-willing to establish j an agricultural association with work- , in z expenses that -would involve a call on" them for money. They say they do , not like to he taxed for what might be j of more visionary than practical impor- ) , tance. For our part, -we cannot but j , asree that another big association j 1 of the kind could not but prove a mis- ; take, notwithstanding the excellence of ; . the objects for which it would be j . started, and the enthusiasm of the projectors- In recommending agricultural co-oneration we did not contemplate a . body with a constitution to be provided by Parliament, and with paid officials and other necessary expenses of such a Board. On the contrary, -we pointed i out that it is the fate, after awhile, of such big associations to get into other | hands a; well as those of the actual agriculturists : and then the action or the body, however well meant, has a tendency to lose its practical character. and degenerate into a mere routine imitation of Agricultural Boards in the old country, where the conditions of husbandry are in comparison stereotyped, and where there are no novelties to cope with or introduce- What we recommended was that fanners should link themselves in local committees : and such small bodies, each comprising no more than a score or two of members, would know exactly what is wanted, and with interchange of views and action in concert as needed, could set about getting it. By association in this modest way, inexpensive and unostentatious but practical, our farmers among other benefits would learn to combine their wits and energies, would get a training in that great principle of co-operation without which their industry cannot flourish. Indeed, until they give themselves this training there is small chance, or no chance at all, of any of the high-paying novel industries being established here. What can individual enthusiasm effect without their help ? j All honour to Mr. Graham for his j spirited persistence about the sugarbeet, and in the long run he will make it a success; but what can he do at present unless a capitalist like Mr. Spreckles, as was hoped some time ago, would come forward I The necessary conjoining aid of the farmers is not to be obtained at present. They are too individualised for confidence in each other. Theirs is the weakness of the loose bundle of sticks : they have not yet the strength and self-reliance to be acquired by combination. That farming does not pay seems a ridiculous cry where the opportunities for it are not half tried. With our climatic advantages why should agriculturists attempt no more than can be performed in half-frozen Manitoba ? And by last J Manitoba accounts we learn that hus- j bandmen there are complaining sadly of the prospect of a further fall in prices, because of the great increase of wheatgrowing in the north-west territories outside their frontier, which have a still severer climate than their own. Those borderers of the Arctic zone cannot turn to the raising of more profitable things as settlers in North New Zealand are able to do. But our farmers say in : effect, and sometimes in word too, " We hear a great deal of the well-paying products of a climate which has a touch of the tropical, but what do we really know about them, they are still new to us; and even when not quite novel how are we to get a market for them ; and , when we do get a market has not the middleman the bulk of the profits f Just so— there are obvious difficult in all these matters, and difficulties for the helpless do not diminish, but increase. Difficulties surround the fanner, individualised as he now is, but the remedy lies with himself and his fellows in the co-operation which would substitute strength for weakness. When the waggon is stuck fast, it is not enough to call upon Jupiterit is the duty of the waggoner himself to put his shoulder to the wheel. Agriculturists can have their interests promoted by the State, but adopting relf-reliant measures, they will be always the more heartily assisted thereto by their civic brethren. No doubt the progress and welfare of agriculture concerns the consumer of the fruits of the earth as well as the producer, but the farmer must not forget that in these latter days the town is able to do more easily without the country than the country without the town. If the necessaries and luxuries obtained from the country behind are insufficient, or in one way or other unsatisfactory, the town can import, can get supplied from abroad. In these days with their shipping facilities, greater than ever in the world before, it does not do for farmers to be inert in attending to their interests. We trust that our rural settlers will cease to take matters so carelessly as they have donesatisfied to complain, and nothing more. It is a true misfortune for any people to have the rural population out of natural proportion to the civic. The modern monster growth of cities is an unmitigated national misfortune wherever it occurs, and it now occurs in almost all parts of the civilised world, and in newly-peopled lands as well as in the old. Overgrown towns swallowing up the population that ought to live in the pure air and among the natural surroundings of the country, tend more and more to cause a national decline, physical and mental, in morals and manners, in spirit as well as body. It is because of the unnatural predominance already of civic life in these young countries that there is the larrikin nuisance, the pest if colonial towns, in

face of which it is sometimes barf 4 bold fast by the hope of a great sxtaoq arising in -these fair lands atEnrop/g antipodes. In 'New Zealand the State bis ft, part to play in enlarging oar naal population and helping it to be pros. parous. The State can promote aaxiealtoral settlement and the introdtacooa of important new crocs: hot after all it rests with fencers them-*.-.-*? - 0 make farming par &7 faming i©aceos£t i the natural advantages, here, and rem*. j dying the artificial impecaments. whkjj | must be accomplished by conjoint, -<-_,» individual, eSbrc