EDUCATIONAL

Hokitika Guardian, 12 November 1924, Page 1

EDUCATIONAL

S UCCESSFU L EX PER 1M ENTS, SYDNEY, October 23.

Inspired, perhaps, by the success of a travelling doniesticc science school contained in a beautifully-equipped railway carriage introduced a year or two ago on the Queensland railways, the Victorian Government lias introduced as an experiment a similar scheme for farmers. It is known as the " Hotter Farming ” train. Incidentally, there are features especially designed for housewives. Over CbOOfl has been spent in equipping an exhibition car and a lecture car and it is Imped by the instructions and demonstrations that are being given to improve materially the standard of various classes of farming. For a start the car was despatched last week to the dairying areas of Gippsland. The experts declare that if the instruction proves effective it will result in doubling the butler and pork output of that iich area, and thus be worth .'JoUO,IHIO a year to the State. Certainly the reception of the i"tou ted cars at the little township of Hunyip, which was the first to lie visited, was very encouraging. Farmers and their wives (locked in from the surrounding farms, and the exhibits were the subject of the closest scrutiny throughout the day, while so numerous were the listeners at the lectures that tiie little travelling lecture room was inadequate and instead the addresses had to he delivered from the platform of the car to people sealed lielow on liutter boxes and other improvised chairs. The train provides plenty of illustrations of the good and had ways of doing things. An exhibit of pork is carried. Two sides have been taken from pigs, tlie same age, fed exactly the same way and reared under the same conditions. Yet one side is valued at sixteen-pence a pound and the other at elevenpence. One is a pure-bred, and the other a mongrel. The fivopeuec a. pound difference can he procured hv the farmer without any real extra cost. It is just the difference between good and bad class breeding. Another instance of the wanton carelessness that means loss on the farm is illustrated by a rabbit-skin exhibit. Kabbit-skins are largely sold from Gippsland, and are. used in the making of lints. If improperly stretched a considerble part of the I'nr on a rabbit-skin becomes greasy when the skins are stacked. In this way the value of the skins is almost totally lost. The results of uncleanliness in the dairy are strikingly demonstrated, and it the simple methods "that- ensure cleanliness and bacteriological purity that are clearly shown by results to he effective are adopted," there should not be an ounce of poor grade butter turned out from the district. Methods of increasing production are also fully dealt with. At nights the programmes are enlivened by items received by a line wireless set, equipped with a loud speaker, that has been installed on the train.