A NEGLECTED DUTY
TESTS OF SOILS. i -The difficulty of tho farmer in secnrj'. Ihg. expert advice, regarding tho treat- ['■:■ ment' of soils was', mentioned at yesterday's meeting of the Wellington •-Central ; Chamber of Commerce. The'"Agricultural Department used to undertake tho • analysis of soils for farmers, but. this ■; wort has been suspended. / -Mr. F. Holmes said that one of ris •i" relatives had taken up a block of gum inland in the north. After removing t!><? . gum he wished to put the land to somi. ■ productive use, and he. sent a sample of the soil to the Agricultural Department asking, for an analysis and for advico'as to crops and rotation. The Department : replied that it did not undertake such : • work' for private people. Later he inter■''•viewed the Minister of„Agriculture, but tho Minister could not get the-lnforma- !■. .tion for him. \. :The. chairman of the council (Mr. A. p 'Leigh Hunt) said that the matter' was j of great importance. In America a farmer •. could have any question at all answered j : by the Department, of .Agriculture. The j' Department prepared maps of th'e'.coun-' !:'try,, showing, the. various soils and indij eating the proper treatment for them. ' ,;S.imilar>. assistance ought to-lie,;, given in Zealand. 1 T: Mr. Holmes said the Minister qf Agri- ': himself admitted that. the f [position'was.'.'absurd. The stimulation of . .'production.'was-a, : matter ofj importance [ to the.- whole' community; '"'■ : [ ■.:'Mr. J. Ward said that other illustraj tions of the Government's failure to enj courage production'might be quoted. , A i -r(ian 'had taken to,one of the Government j a ba'r-'of-Tnranaki iron, to- | the; result': of expenditure j : ■■■'pi some ,#II,OOO on'plant antf .experiments.' j. =He had• wonted~th'e iron'analysed.- but i. 'the official reply had been so half-heart-j, «d that he'took the bar away with him. .'•The council decided that tho Govern. ', xacnt should be asked to resume tbefroo ; analysis of soils for farmers., . . .• ..•:'
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19190513.2.94
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 195, 13 May 1919, Page 8
Word count
Tapeke kupu
311A NEGLECTED DUTY Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 195, 13 May 1919, Page 8
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Dominion. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.