MEN OF THE SOIL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20385, 14 October 1929, Page 3

MEN OF THE SOIL.

FARMERS AND THEIR WORK.

PRIDE IN PHYSICAL LABOUR

THE LOVE OF THE GARDEN

It has been frequently argued during recent years that one of tho reasons why men and women havo deserted tho rural districts, and why our young people refuse to take up farming is dislike for hard work. This may bo true in some cases, but generally speaking it is utterly false. Tho average healthy man and woman so far from disliking physical work, which is tho class of work meant, actually take a delight in it. What is chiefly objected to is extremely hard labour under very disagreeable conditions and without fair reward.

That there is real pleasure to be found in farming and gardening work by a large number of people is amply proved by tho fact that men employed in other strenuous tasks take to agriculture and horticulture as >'a recreation and as a pleasure. One has only to look round such cities as Auckland to find men and women putting in quite a number of hours per week raising flowers or vegetables under very difficult conditions, and if one goes further out beyond city boundaries it is absolutely surprising to see the number of gardens and small farms run by men whoso real occupation is in the city, but who are ready to devote their Saturday afternoon and in some cases their Sunday as well to the improvement of their holdings. If only our politicians realised how strong and how wide-spread was this love of agricultural work they would see to it that such men and women had ample opportunity to secure land and would provide them with transport so well arranged that men and women employed in sedentary occupations could have the same cheap workers' tickets as those who have to reach the city by 8 a.m. Striking Illustrations. It is not only the men and the women engaged on indoor or sedentary work who find pleasure in tilling the soil. Some of those doing the most trying and strenuous of physical labour lake to it after their day's task is done and sometimes before it is begun. One can find evidences of this in Waihi where the goldminers have built up gardens and orchards out of very poor soil. It can be found at Hikurangi where the coal miners have done the same thing, and one finds instances of it even on the Denniston plateau where the bituminous coal hewers have tilled little patches of intractable soil two thousand feet' above the wild West Coast. .

No more striking illustration of this love of soil working can be found than among the brickfields of New Lynn, where men employed through the day on some of the heaviest physical toil known, put in their evenings and their holidays working the poor clay soils and to their, infinite credit it may be said that through their skill and persistence they have created some of the finest small home gardens in the Dominion. But it may be argued that these men and women turn to gardening and other forms of agriculture for change and that it is not a true test of an inherent love of land working. Let this be accepted if need be and we can turn to the men living on farms—large farms, small farms, rich farms, poor farms, profitable farms, farms which yield their owners the barest subsistence and in what other occupation does one find so much hard work done for sheer love of the task ? There is a common saying that a fanner's work is never done. This is not so much a case of necessity driving a man from daylight to dark, as of the desire of man to improve and beautify that parcel of the earth which he can call his own and it should bo understood that it is not merely pride of ownership which impells man "to such labour, but the freedom which ownership gives a man to shape and mould tfio iand to his liking. Pride and Joy in Work. , s One could go much further than this and show the pride and joy which men find in somo of the hardest tasks of the farm. The skilled ploughman breaking in raw land with a four-horse team can and does love the smell of the freshly turned soil and finds keen satisfaction in the straightness of his furrow. The harvester, sweating in the hot sun, takes pleasure in seeing the tall corn go down before the sweep of knives and the stooks rise in even rows behind him. Ihere are a hundrd other tasks which farmers find joy in besides the i satisfaction of work well done and tho keen healthy appetito and the pleasure of rest after toil. It is fortunate for civilisation that men, and womeu too, have this inborn lovo of farm work, otherwise the fabric of society would have crumbled ages ago. And . what is the real reason for what is called the rural exodus, tho drift to tho cities? It is certainly not- fear of hard work, or isolation, or rough conditions. The real reasons are that it has boen made dilficult for men to acquire land, that the land worker is not given a fair share in tho products of his labour; that tlie artificially created high values ol land and the reluctance of the State and of financial institutions to assist the fanners in making their land productive stops new settlement. There are many other things done by the Stato or not done by the State and the public which prevent men going on to tho land or help to drive him off the land before he can overcome the initial difficulties of making a farm holding profitable.