THE NEED FOR AN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3034, 8 May 1912, Page 16

THE NEED FOR AN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.

The preconceived ideas of most townsmen in reference to the farm could be materialised if onle wfa-nted merely to grow enough to provide food for himself and his family. He could easily enough do bo on a small area without employing labour outside of an immediate family circle of three or four efficient helpers. But much more than that has to be done, and labour cannot be rendered profitable without a knowledge of the business. Anyone who takes up land and expects to make a living on it should have the work hammered into him during a course of several years by competent instructors. By actual participation in that work and the use of modern machinery for a term or two he would have a chance of making a creditable and successful settler, and almost any other class of small settlement, particularly on poor, starved land, is the refinement of cruelty. At this end of the Dominion we have frequently complained of the want of provision for giving our lads such instruction as would equip them to become good settlers. A State farm is our right, in which agricultural instruction could be imparted to farmers' sons and the crops we grow increased by careful experiment and selection; where the seed used in experiment can be grown and controlled, and where practical work would be participated in. Our farmers know the disabilities under which they themselves laboured in the matter of early training, and it rests with them to insist, and lose no opportunity of insisting, that their sons should get an education suited to the calling they mean to pursue. Manual work is essential as portion of such an education, and the work of such a farm would be done largely bv the students. In that way they would acquire dexterous fingers and hands at an early age, and develop _ into good all-round men, a thing which' the varied nature of farming demands and which is the

secret of success. If the habit of actually joining in and directing the work is not acquired young it will never be taken up. The curriculum would "Be designed to give the students an intelligent knowledge of the soils in the immediate neighbourhood and of the plants which grow upon it in the every-day course of farming. It would embrace all the animal life of the farm, and the personal manipulation of the farm implements, and not the least of the students' duties would be to keep a rough diary of the opertions of the farm, so that he would retain for his guidance accurate records of the handling of each crop throughout its growth, and understand better the practical bearing of his instruction on the work of the farm. It would enable him to work his farm profitable and avoid mistakes and losses which are caused by want of knowledge and mismanagement. A term of instruction means so much to a farmer. It enables him to keep off the rocks which prove costly to the inexperienced. How offen do' we see fields of grain tempting Providence by being allowed to stand too long. A strong wind for one night has often converted a 40 or 50-bushel crop worth £8 or £9 into one worth practically the cost of harvesting it. The failure to roll grain might be mentioned as another instance by which the grain does not tiller out and yield so much as it should, while the rough ground forbids close cutting with the binder. But hundreds of instances might be adduced, such as neglecting to steep grain before sowing, carelessness in building stacks, deferring to cut hay till its nourishment is transferred to the seeds, and various other small and apparently trivial but most important matters which in the aggregate constitute the difference between success and failure, profit and loss. In no other business can it be more truly said than of farming that knowledge is power—power to increase the exports of the Dominion and enrich himself. The little leakages due to want of instruction and experience and to causes in themselves preventable would, if placed side by side, amount to a very considerable sum in the course of the year, and demonstrate the necessity for the provision of adequate instruction for embryo settlers whose fathers are not millionaires and can afford to send their sons away from,home for years.