INCREASING PRODUCTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17293, 17 October 1919, Page 9

INCREASING PRODUCTION.

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. CHIEF JUSTICE'S VIEWS. DOMINION'S PRESSING NEED. [BY TELEGRAPH.PRESS ASSOCIATION.] WELLINGTON. Thursday. Before the annual conference of the New Zealand Council of Agriculture a paper was delivered by the Chief Justice. Sir ftobert Stout, on " Agriculture and Education." At the outset he dealt with the necessity for increased production. This, he said, was a question not for farmers only at the present day, but for everyone in the community. As to education, its relation to agricultural and pastoral interests was such that without it there was little chance of increased productiveness. New Zealand had, in the past, been far too careless in neglecting to provide for efficient education in agriculture. Sir Robert Stout, after commenting on the lack of any proper agricultural college in the North Island, went on to make what he termed practical suggestions : — (1) That there should be chairs in agriculture—that was Professors of Agriculturein all our University Colleges ; (2) that experimental farms in the North Island, under Government control, should be utilised for the teaching of agriculture to students who had entered the university for agricultural tuition; (3) that, if possible an experimental farm should bo started somewhere North of Auckland, so as to deal with problems affecting the northern district; (4) that students in agriculture should, for four or five months in the year, do farming work at experimental farms They could do their chemis- ' try, their biology, their agriculture, and ' their mechanics at university colleges. Looking at the question of farming from another point of view, the Chief Justice said a country where there was a large number of small farmers and intensive culture was a country where there was most patriotism, and a country where there would be most order, and where, consequently, there would be most progress. Fanning tended to high national life. He believed much of the trouble in Australia had been caused by the fact that small farmers were not numerous The Chief Justice added that in order to popularise country life our country schoolhouses should be utilised to greater advantage. A school-house should be the centre of social, as well as of intellectual, life, and not for boys and girls only, but for the whole community. In many ways more attention should be paid to the social amenities of life in country districts, and by this means we would attract to farming many who now thought they ; could only live a happy social life in the cities.