The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1912 INSTRUCTION FOR FARMERS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 96, 18 December 1912, Page 4

The Stratford Evening Post. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE EGMONT SETTLER. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1912 INSTRUCTION FOR FARMERS.

3! r. F. S. Pope, Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, in lii.s annual report just issued, remarks that many of the questions that confront the leaders of agricultural thought in Xc \\ Zealand arc undoubtedly of enormous importance, hut probably the future prosperity of our population depends more directly on the right soli) tion being found for the problem of how best to instruct our present and future farmers than upon any other question whatever. 31 r. Pope is probably very near the mark in what he says, and the value of the co-opera-tion of the man of science and the man on the soil, is every day being made more manifest. Amongst other matters 31 r. Pope recommends that the Government establish twenty farms for demonstration, stud-breed-ing experiment, and general instruction. Previously the work done by the Department in the direction of instruction for farmers has consisted of

—(1) Nature study in tlio primary schools, including gardening whore practicable; (2) elementary agricultural instruction at a. few of the high schools; (3) technical school classes in milk-testing, farriery, wool-classing, and a few other subjects allied to agriculture; (I) a complete course of agricultural training at Lincoln College, the 1 fees in connection with which, however, are prohibitive to most'would-be farmers; (5) practical, but necessarily spasmodic, instruction by travelling officers of the Department of Agriculture, etc.; (6) experiments or demonstrations with field crops and fruit trees in various localities; (7) demonstration or experimental farms conducted by the Department in the North Island; and (S) the training given by the Department during the past year at the Ruaknra Farm of Instruction. Though this list appears formidable, a great deal more requires to he done if this country’s production is to lie relatively improved and increased to bear favourable comparison with the production of other lands. Mr. Pope holds that, the reason the Government’s experimental farms have not proved nearly the success they should have done is that they have not kept sufficiently in touch with the changes that have taken place, from mixed to comparatively specialised farming. Each of the principal experimental farms now in operation is being conducted either as a mixed farm or with specialities, which are, to an extent, in conflict, and the staffs have only I ho comparatively imperfect knowledge attainable by those who are prove a led from confining themselves to

one or two suitable lines of study, experiment, and practice. However, despite this rather doleful report, we may hope for better things because,

when mistakes are recognised and admitted, there is a reasonable chance that thev will bo rectified.

WOMEN IN POLITICS

The entry ot American women into politics has been one, and bv no means

tb<' least interesting, of the many unusual developments winch have marked this year’s Presidential campaign, the ‘Nation’ remarks, and goes on to nay that for the first time in American history the national parties turned to the vast reservoir of electioneering strength which is to be found not merely in the devotion but the competency that women bring to tnc support of public causes that enlist their sympathies. For the first time, coo, a party that, though a new one, is a fighting force in every State Ti the Union, has declared for woman suffrage. Not since the anti-slavery agitation have American women taken so considerable a part in the politics of their country. Proceeding the ‘Nation’ says: “In the past half century they have made themselves a power in many important departments of national life. They have plunged into industrialism on a scale that easily surpasses anything in Europe, in the professions, as teachers, writers, lawyers, physicians, ministers, and architects, and so on, they form at least half the total number employed. The laws of property and contract, testamentary disposition and inheritance, and divorce have been altered to give them a legal securily as wives and mothers such, perhaps, as no other women enjoy. One by one the barriers interposed by the law and public opinion in the way of their engaging in this occupation and in that have been broken down. In matters of education their mtluon:e is such that there is some danger of American culture becoming effeminised. They guide the religious and philanthropic life of the country, and their tastes .and feelings arc the supreme court of judgment on literature and art and drama, on social problems and public morals. Put politics they have hitherto been content to regard as a masculine diversion. Why is this? It is due in some degree to the facts that politics in the United State? have not hitherto attracted the best elements in the nation, have largely degenerated into a rather squalid and vulgar game between professional players, have become at the same time so bewilderingly and artificially complicated as to repel the average citizen, and have principally turned on tariff, currency, banking, railway, and intricate economic questions that have no special attraction for women, who are usually stirred by moral issues that directly affect character and individual life. The very freedom that American women have won in other spheres, the absence or the abolition of most of the traditional disabilities of womanhood, have made them lose the collective sense of sex in the enjoyment of their personal privileges. But if the forces that hitherto have made them politically negligible or indifferent, have been many and various, so also are the forces that are now bringing them once more into the field. American politics are subject to an upheaval which holds out a fair promise of vitalising them anew. It is not only that the people are losing patience with the old incantations and the meaningless rigidities of the parties, it is also that they are approaching public questions from a definitely moral point of view, with a now set of ideals and aspirations. And it is also that problems of social reform, of the conditions under which the masses live and labour, are at last replacing the unrealities of the old political schools.”