Farmers' Sons on the Farm

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 124, 8 April 1893, Page 4

Farmers' Sons on the Farm

Mr Anderson, Director of Agriculture, during a recent visit to Waggn, addressed a large and appreciative audience at the Murrumbidgeo Pastoral and Agricultural Association rooms, on the subject of keeping tho sons of farmers on the soil. He congratulated the Association on having the best show ground in the colony, and for being the first society which had procured a library of its own. He strongly impressed upon farmers the desiraoility of giving their sons a technical education, and said that their primary education should be of an agricultural tone, so that the whole of their efforts should be in the direction of the advancement of agriculture, with the object of working land with profit to themselves. He contended that instruction should be given which would enable them to live on less than 640 acres of land. He would introduce, where possible, new industries, new crops, and new forms of agriculture, which would allow tillers of the soil to obtain a living on comparatively small areas of land. Some farmers experienced great difficulties in keeping their sons on the soil. This fact is due to a diversity of causes, chief of which is lack of mutual sympathy between father and son. Some fathers are apt to forget that they were once boys themselves, and deny their eons a welloarned holiday and the cheque necessary to enjoy it. On the other hand, there are thoughtless sons who " loaf and linger " round the farm throughout the year, and who are no more use than a bandicoot. Freedom and the beauties of Nature possess no charms for them, and they sigh for tho hum of tho city, where, if they are fortunate, they either become policemen, railway porters, or tram conductors. It is iuvariably found that, where homo life on the farm is attractive, and where mutual sympathy exists between father and son, there is very little difficulty in keeping tho latter on the soil, and consequently there is no dearth af agricultural labour.