FARMERS OF THE FUTURE

Taranaki Daily News, 13 October 1934, Page 16 (Supplement)

FARMERS OF THE FUTURE

APPLICATION OF SCIENCE

EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES, METHODS OF BREAKING IN LAND.

(By

Maire M. Arthur).

“Tire most arresting features are the increases in the percentages of boys proceeding to employment in the occupational groups, clerical, professional and warehouses and the trades and industries at the expense of farming.”—From the report of the Minister of Education to the New Zealand Parliament, September, 1934. The overcrowding of the trades and industries at the expense of farming gives much food for thought. The lack of farm labour is due to many causes, one of them no doubt being the desire to belong to the “white collar class” and regarding such a step as an advancement from farm life. The popular idea that anyone can go farming who cannot make a living any other way is incomprehensible. If one of the family lacks brains to pass examinations it is immediately thought, “Ob, well, he’ll do on a farm.” The educational qualities that go to the making of a good farmer are quite as sound as those that go to the making of a good business or professional man. To-day farming is becoming more and more of a science. The farmer has to be effectively intelligent in a great many ways. In this machine age he is compelled to have some knowledge of mechanics, tractors, motor lorries, milking machines, etc., which, not being capable of perpetual motion, have a nasty habit-of breaking down. Times are hard and mechanics not available so the farmer has to turn to and mend the break. He has to be a manager. There are profits and losses and current accounts, and these demand a knowledge of management and bookl-keeping. A knowledge of practical' chemistry, applied in the form of soil treatment and dairy science, is very necessary. In the science of genetics he positively excels and sometimes out-Mendels Mendel. SOUND PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE. From the seriousness with which the farming community discusses the sterilisation of the unfit I deduce that they would also be quite prepared to turn eugenists. The farmer’s attempts at meteorology leave little to be desired is far as the application of that science goes to his success in sowing and reaping. Veterinary science is another of his accomplishments. In short, he has a fund of sound practical knowledge. Generally speaking he is not much of a talker; hence no doubt the mistaken idea of his educational deficiencies. His possibilities of self-expression ste, howeve?, great.

There is a great opportunity for the Government in New Zealand to advance farming to the equal of a front rank profession by making available to the community the sound knowledge necessary for the pursuit of successful farming. The Danish Home University system is worthy of consideration. Mr. Keynes, probably the most sound and advanced of British economists, maintains that “the essential factor to trade recovery is not merely cheap money, but above all an increase in the national volume of expenditure.” The Government has unspent capital and the country plenty of unused labour. Let the capital be devoted to the acquiring and the breaking up of from 1500 to 2009 acres of land, not by the old-fashioned hard pioneering methods but by the use of the best modern appliances, and the unspent labour be afforded a chance to earn in this development. When this land has been somewhat broken in let boys from the agricultural colleges and those taking the agricultural course in secondary schools be put to work there for practical experience. Their living quarters would be contained in one large building and supplied with electricity, wireless and baths. This building could afterwards be used as a hall. The land could ultimately be divided into 100-acre farms and the men engaged on the work be given a chance to acquire these f arms, subject to the engagement of some of the boys. It ip assumed that capable men as teachers and directors would be in charge of the scheme.

In this fashion three great ends would be served —thorough and efficient draining for young farmers, cultivation of vast areas of land, and slow elimination of unemployment./