The Special School for Boys at Otekaike

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume 94, Issue 1, 15 January 1957, Page 67

The Special School for Boys at Otekaike

“A Classroom of 300 Acres'"

THE results that can be achieved from a farm plan based on the best advice available are clearly shown at the Special School for Boys at Otekaike in North Otago. The Special School is a training centre for boys of low intelligence from all parts of the country and is one of the many institutions administered by the Child Welfare Division of the Department of Education.

FIVE years ago the 300-acre farm at Otekaike was almost cropped out, and the Division called in the Department of Agriculture to prepare a soil survey and farm plan and advise what should be done to make the farm more productive. The results of the work that has gone into the property since then were shown last season —one of the driest on record — when production was higher than for many years as a result of limited irrigation, controlled grazing of improved pastures, and the use of silage, liquid manure, and compost. The Special School property lies on the flat land and one ridge of a small valley facing the Waitaki River, not far from Kurow. It is dominated by the fine homestead built in 1878 by the Hon. Robert Campbell, who owned many thousands of acres in the Waitaki River basin and who died in 1889.

The house was built of limestone quarried on the property and these deposits today provide the School with its supplies of agricultural lime. The homestead and farm were bought by the Government in 1908, and the School, which was founded in that year, has since provided thousands of boys with the training in living and the manual skills they need to find their place in the community. Some boys at Otekaike come from districts where there are no special classes for them to attend; others have been tried in special classes and found unsuitable, and there are some who have presented problems in behaviour at school. A small minority are wards of the State. The course of action which takes a boy to Otekaike may start with the parents, or with his school, and all

boys are examined by a psychologist or psychiatrist before the Superintendent of Child Welfare approves their enrolment. The boys receive formal education to the limit of their abilities and remain at school to the age of 15. They then join the working group and are placed in various types of farm work, in the boot repairing shop, and in the carpentry shop to test their aptitudes. Recreations and Hobbies The work and the recreations and hobbies the boys follow in their spare time give them a good, all-round background to living with other people and at the same time everything possible is done through the School’s activities to throw responsibility on them and teach them to use initiative.

Otekaike is aptly described by the principal, Mr. D. P. O’Connor, as “a classroom of 300 acres”. The garden and orchard, covering almost 10 acres, keep the School fully supplied with vegetables and provide most of the fruit needed by the community of 175 boys and staff. In a good season the hothouse produces a ton of tomatoes. The boys carry out all the tilling, planting, and pruning and learn to drive tractors and handle a wide range of farm and garden implements. Dairy Farming The dairy herd comprises 30 grade Friesians, and the boys do all the milking in a shed built according to the best modern practice. Two bails are equipped for machine milking and two for training in hand milking. The washings from the shed and yard are carried in a concrete race to a tank and spread on the pastures. Calves not needed for replacement of the herd are sold, and 30 to 40 dry cattle are run on 60 acres of hill country. In recent years aerial topdressing has greatly improved the carrying capacity of this hill land. On an average the dairy supplies 1501 b. of fresh milk daily to the School and 601 b. to the houses on the property, 1501 b. of skimmed milk for School use, and 2001 b. of cream a week for the local dairy factory. Pig and Sheep Raising Pedigree pigs from Otekaike have won prizes at the Oamaru A. and P. Show in recent years. Breeding is from Large White boars and Tam-

worth sows and the practice of selling weaners has been abandoned in favour of fattening pigs on the property. The pigs are fed on fodder beet and kitchen offal. The farm usually carries about 150 sheep. Every season, 120 to 130 store lambs are bought, fattened on lucerne, and sold. More lambs are bought close to the winter, carried over, shorn, fattened, and sold. Last season a profit of 30s. to 355. a head was made on these purchases. The small number of sheep carried does not justify a shearing shed, and

sheep are shorn in the shed at the neighbouring Otekaike Station. The main crop at the Special School is potatoes. Ten acres are planted and in a normal year the yield of 100 tons or so is sufficient to supply all the Child Welfare institutions in the South Island. Last season, however, as a result of drought, the farm produced barely enough potatoes for the needs of Otekaike. In addition about 3 acres are planted in fodder beet and 3 acres in chou moellier. Silage is made and stored in bays cut in the hillside.

Forestry Training Forestry is one of the most interesting aspects of farming at the Special School. When the property was privately owned large areas of the flat land in front of the homestead were covered with coniferous plantations. A sawmill produced 2,000,000 board feet of timber in 16 years, and several buildings at Otekaike, still in firstclass order after 40 years, were con-

structed with Pinus radiata timber grown on the property. Among the many splendid trees at the Special School are 27 varieties of conifers, but the valuable timber crops produced today come entirely from plantations of Douglas fir and Pinus radiata on land unfit for pastoral farming. The trees now being cropped are thinnings, which are sawn, barked, and creosoted by the boys for use as fence posts.

Fencing Instruction In the past 5 years the boundary fenceabout 3| miles longhas been completely renewed by the boys, who have also erected a similar length of fencing on the farm. In the past 2 years alone the plantations have supplied 800 fencing posts for use on the farm, and last year 100 strainers and 200 intermediate posts were sold. In giving the boys experience in all departments of farm work the Special School has turned out some first-class hands at fencing. Neighbouring farmers sometimes call on the School for help at weekends. The boys are encouraged to go out and work for them; they enjoy doing it, and their earnings are paid into the School’s recreation fund, from which all benefit. Many, but not all, of the boys who leave Otekaike go to jobs on the land. When they have had sufficient training to enable them to take their place in the community the field staff of the Child Welfare Division help to find work for them. If a boy is . best suited to farm work, the Child Welfare Officer will discuss his case with a farmer who is in need of a hand, and, if. a job is arranged, visit the boy at intervals which gradually lengthen, until the Division is convinced that a good placement, satisfactory to. all concerned, has been made.