SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 332, 18 April 1928, Page 8

SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE

IT is satisfactory to have the opinion of Dr. C. J. Reakes, * Director-General of Agriculture, that New Zealand is working along the right lines in scientific agricultural research. Dr. Reakes should speak authoritatively, for he has just reinforced his knowledge of the soil and its potentialities by a world tour which has included attendance at the Imperial Agricultural Research Conference in London and visits to important centres of agricultural research in Europe and Australia. The recognition of the importance of agriculture as a factor in Empire solidity was evidenced by the London conference, which was attended by men in the very forefront of agricultural and scientific research, who came from almost every country in which the British flag is flown. The conference, Dr. Reakes considers, will result in much better and more complete co-ordina-tion in research throughout the Empire. New Zealand, for instance, will now be in association with research workers in all other British countries and will thus be enabled to avoid unnecessary duplication of work. Special investigations were made by Dr. Reakes into the diseases of dairy cattle and their treatment, and the knowledge thus acquired in such countries as Denmark, France, Belgium, Germany and Holland should he of inestimable value to New Zealand. In view of the recent opening of an agricultural college at Palmerston North, Dr. Reakes’s inquiries as to methods of agricultural instruction on the Continent should also prove to have been well worth while, and the publication of the report he is to make to the Government will be awaited with keen interest. To make “two blades of grass grow where only one grew before” must he the particular aim of a country like New Zealand, where the area of cultivable land is limited and prosperity depends upon getting the utmost yield from each acre. The old casual tillage is being replaced by scientific farming, and it is by its research into soil potentialities, fertilisers, and breeding and feeding of stock that scientific investigation may render invaluable aid to agriculture. Though the scientific research side in New Zealand is at present limited, it may do splendid work as far as it goes, and it is now, as the result of recent developments, in close touch with research in other parts of the Empire. New Zealand farmers may depend upon receiving the latest scientific data in connection with their operations. Dr. Reakes’s mission abroad, therefore, may he regarded as having been prudent and timely.