THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, JULY 22, 1926. THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19386, 22 July 1926, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, JULY 22, 1926. THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE

After what to many will seem an unduly long delay, the Minister of Agriculture has announced the Government's choice of site for the Dominion's central Agricultural College. The announcement has been eagerly awaited, and is certainly overdue; but the step is so fateful that those responsible for its taking must be given credit for a care that involved much deliberation. The Minister's statement does not cover all the questions that arise. When the bill that is in preparation is brought down these will doubtless have answer. It is enough for the immediate present to know that this very important project has been carried a definite stage further. Some preliminary indications were given in recent weeks that the choice would fall on a property in the vicinity of Palmerston North, and this expectation is now confirmed. The Batchelor property of SBO acres, situated about two miles eastward of the town, has found favour, and it is proposed to supplement this area by accepting the Palmerston North Borough Council's offer to purchase and donate the McHardy property of 24 acres alongside. This local offer is certainly a very valuable contribution. It was made, it will be remembered, when the question of site was first mooted, and then it savoured of a bid for Palmerston North's advantage over other towns aspiring to have the college adjacent to them. Whatever element of competition then entered, when the choice was still to be made, has been removed by the decision, which cannot have been seriously influenced by that offer? and Palmerston North is %o be cordially commended for its handsome gift. It is the custom for institutions of higher learning to attract gifts from the localities in which they are placed, and it is quite fitting that the agricultural college, at its very foundation, should receive this substantial donation from the adjacent municipality. That it is offered to an institution designed to render far-reaching service makes it especially praiseworthy. The reasons given by the Minister in justification of the choice commend themselves. He has said nothing, it is true, about the price to be paid for the Batchelor property. That is a matter on which judgment must be in abeyance. The purposes of an agricultural college do not demand land highly improved, and the purchase ought not to entail buying at anything approaching suburban values. | This consideration apart, the land as ; described by the Minister appears to suit the end in view. It is declared to have various types of soil and to be adaptable for experimental and demonstration uses, while both for dairying activities and cropping under North Island conditions it fits the particular requirements that have most clearly dictated its selection. There is a good deal also to be said for it in its adjacency to a town presenting accommodation facilities for farmers desiring to avail themselves of the short practical courses that are to be included in its curriculum. To provide those facilities in a remote rural location would be very costly, and a compromise between such a location and one actually in a town area has obvious advantages when this need is taken into account. From the point of view of access the situation seems as good as any that might be named. Tho probable development of Lincoln College eventually into an institution of similar status and service for the South Island has been very properly kept in mind, and it is well that in the meantime its service is to be strengthened as a co-ordinate part of the Dominion-wide scheme. When that eventual development takes place there will still be ample use in this island for all the equipment of a fully accredited college in the Manawatu location.

Having made a selection of sitQ, the Government's next step is to place the college upon it. This, too, will take time. The method of proceeding, as outlined in the Minister's statement, is first to appoint the administrative body and then with its guidance to decide on what is requisite in buildings, equipment and staffing. This method ought to ensure a fully serviceable result. It is calculated to get expert enlightenment on the programme to be followed and to enlist the essentially necessary co-operation of the academic, the farming and the commercial sections of the community. But care should be taken not to delay the setting up of this body. It should be done as soon as the legislation is accomplished. The Dominion has been waiting a long time for higher education in agriculture. If others had been likeminded with some wise enthusiasts who long ago voiced the urgency of it, there would have been adequate research in process and our essential industries would have been much more prosperous than they are. We have leeway to make up. It is some thing that a promising course is set, but there is need for expeditious progress on it.