THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1910. THE AGRICULTURAL SHOW.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14536, 25 November 1910, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1910. THE AGRICULTURAL SHOW.

The interest taken by all sections of the public in the • AgriculturalShow is the measure of the import-' ance attached to the agricultural industry. This interest is steadily increasing as the .importance to Auckland of agriculture becomes more generally recognised and appreciated. Many of our citizens can re call the time when those who had faith in the . productiveness of our provincial lands professed their faith in the unsympathetic ears of an unbelieving nation. The plains of Canterbury, the fertile valleys of Otago, the flats of Marlborough, the green pastures of Taranaki, and the great sheep runs of Hawke's Bay, stood in the national mind as incomparably superior to any regions to be found in the great province of the North. It was recognised that our timber, our gum, our flax, and our gold, were valuable assets, but it was asked what would happen when the timber was felled, the gum dug, the flax cut, and the gold mined. To-day there is not "a province with finer agricultural prospects than Auckland or one which stands higher in the " national - estimation. ; The Waikato in which few had faith is admittedly the garden of New Zealand ; the dreary gum lands have been invaded by the orchardist, and year by year surrender, wide acres of waste to the planting of fruiting trees; the great

swamps are ; being drained for the dairymen and the uplands laid under grass for sheep and cattle; the King Country and the East Coast are being slowly unlocked because they are treasure troves and the Far North is being transformed into a most desirable possession. Timbergetting and flax-cutting, gum-digging and gold-mining are still great and profitable industries, while coalmining has -been added to our provincial occupations, but Agriculture, in . its many branches, has risen to supreme importance, and its permanence enables us to look with easiness to the inevitable future when the wealth stored by Nature during past ages and generations will have been exploited and exhausted. There is no longer any suggestion made that Auckland is not agricultural country, for its attractions have set in motion a great stream of migration from other provinces, which have now become naturally' jealous of the province which wins from them so many thousands of their most enterprising sons. That Auckland retains its old-time cosmopolitanism, and numbers among its settlers men born in evfery province, and in almost every township in' New Zealand, is the best proof that could be adduced were proof needed—on behalf of its present standing in the agricultural | mind of the Dominion. Auckland j Town is the greatest commercial and industrial centre in New Zealand because . Auckland Province is the most flourishing and most promising agricultural district. That Townspeople should have an eye to pleasurable excitement rather than to instructive information in their patronage of agricultural shows is " altogether natural, but those directly interested in Agriculture know how valuable are these institutions from an industrial and economic point of view. The evolutions of urban and of agrarian industrialism are apparently proceeding upon distinct and somewhat opposing lines. The tendency of the towns is towards industrial decentralisation. The small farmer is the man whom every modern State seeks to increase and encourage, and in whose interest all modern developments are set in motion. The reason is obvious. Agriculture . requires ceaseless individual attention and constant personal sacrifice. It cannot be easily formalised. . Its progress depends upon the unremitting care bestowed upon every detail and upon the carefully remembered experience of results attained from constantly varying soils, seasons, stocks, and methods. Book-know-ledge is as valuable in Agriculture as in any other industry, and all thoughtful agriculturists realise that sound . technical education is an essential to scientific farming. But the value of: personal observation and acquired experience is increased, not reduced, by the entry of technical education, which simply enables the farmer to understand the " whys" and the " hows" of obscure facts and subtle processes. To all intelligent agriculturists an agricultural show is a phase of agricultural education, enabling them to see what is being done by others in this great national work, to compare results, and to correct mistakes. We are all accustomed to speak of acres as though they were unalterable units in agricultural production, but scientific agriculture can increase the yield of an acre to such an extent as to disturb fundamentally the meaning of mere acreages. The best farmer is not the one who has the largest farm or the most cows or the biggest clip. The best farmer is the one who obtains from his land the most profitable return without depreciating its fertility. New Zealand is a small country, with no vast plains like Canada and Australia, with no enormous back" like South Africa and the Argentine. In this Dominion we can only prosper if our agriculture is conducted upon scientific principles and if every, farmer is inspired by the spirit which never admits that perfection has been attained. That we are advancing upon sound lines is demonstrated by every succeeding " show," by the steady improvement in stock and m'ethods, and by the correlated increase of production. Our national and provincial progress 'will be still more marked when Auckland possesses a great agricultural . college worthy of • a scientific industry upon which we must mainly rely for national, - provincial, and individual prosperity.