A SOUTHERN TOUR (Continued).

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 482, 21 June 1890, Page 6

A SOUTHERN TOUR (Continued).

The Lincoln School of Agriculture.

It is about a dozen miles by train from Christchurch to Lincoln. The journey out is a very pleasant one, the soil on each side of the line being apparently very good, and thickly studded with farm buildings. The farmers here evidently believe in grain crops, as a number of stacks were all over the fields or at the steadings. At one farmhouse I counted 12 newly-built stacks. In some instances threshing had commenced. Potatoes and other crops were also well represented on some farms. From the Lincoln station it is about half a mile to the school buildings. These are a nice handsome pile, built of brick and standing about 200 yards off the road. Fronting the buildings there is a large lawn or paddock of about 15 acres, which was grazed. After presenting my letters, the Principal kindly took me all over the garden first. Here the autumn bloom of roses was something worth going some distance to see. The small flower garden was kept in very good condition. The next visit was at the orchard. Here there was about three acres planted with fruit trees, principally apple. These were about eight years old, and were in full bearing and literally covered with fruit. Here they had adopted a’system of training which I had never seen before. It was a dwarf system, bub the peculiarity of it was that the lower branches were allowed to rest on the ground. This had its advantages and disadvantages, bub the system would be good on exposed situations. In the orchard there was one acre of English grasses planted out and kept by themselves for experimental purposes. The soil in the garden was composed of what I would call rich loam, and well adapted for all manner of garden crops. I could not help thinking that when all the expense and trouble was taken to teach our young men to be good farmers, it was a pity that a little trouble was not also taken to teach good gardening as well. The employment of one gardener would be sufficient, as the students are taught to do the work, and in after life many of them would benefit if a knowledge of fruit-growing, etc., were taught. The gardens and school building are well sheltered from the prevailing winds which sweep over the Canterbury Plains. After leaving the gardens, I was driven all over the farm. In the first paddock which we visited some of the students were busy at the threshing machine ; wheat was the grain, and the yield was expected to be about forty bushels to the acre. In the paddock there was a stack of ensilage, and instead of using a press they simply pub about six inches of soil on top, and then an ordinary stack of hay was built thereon. We afterwards drove through a number of paddocks, some of them devoted to grazing the farm stock. Others were devoted to the ordinary farm crops, which do well in Canterbury. I was also informed that a good deal of experimenting was done on a small scale before it was tried on a large one. Since the introduction of the bumble bee they are now enabled to grow and seed red clover, and one paddock will give very handsome returns of seed this season. The whole of the land attached to the school is about 600 acres, cut up into paddocks of about 25 acres each, thus giving nice-sized paddocks to work and crop. The farm is nob all in one block, bub is all within easy working distance from the main buildings. A regular system of cropping by rotation is carried out with good result. At my visit there were about forty students attached to the school. These have to go through a regular system

of tuition. One day they are in the schoolroom being taught by the masters, the next day they are oub in the open, there being taught the practical part of the larm work. In each department there is a practical man whoso duty ib is to see. that each student properly does the work intrusted to him. The students are taught to plough, reap, dig, trim fences, build stacks, make gates, hinges, shoe horses, and every other work that may be required in the ordinary routine of farm work. As we travelled round we could see different sections of the students engaged in the usual harvest and other necessary work during that period of the season. The soils on the farm vary from what might be called a heavy rich loam to a poor sandy or shingly soil, thus giving a good range, and each of these are made to produce what they are best adapted for. After going round the farm we travelled back to the buildings, and I was ! shown round the farm buildings : the milk house, the cheese room, the butter-making rooms, etc., with all the improved appliances for manufacturing and keeping. Everything in all these different departments was kepb scrupulously clean, and each in its proper place so as to create in the students a taste for order. The stables, the cow sheds, the sheep pens, and all the other et cetera attached to a well-Kept farm were in first-class condition. I next visited the dining-room ; the dinner was just being placed on the table as the young men were trooping into the lavatories so as to clean themselves before sitting down to dinner. Ib was a pleasant sight to see the thirty or forty young men, many of them just at the age when they often put up their hands to feel the young growth which is just beginning to show on their upper lips. At the same timethey were as merry and healthy a crowd as you could wish to see, and I thought that I could have given all I possess,even to the lavish abuse of my best friend,if I could just again be one of such. Nor did I envy the young men their health and spirits, but I also thought what an advantage it would have been to me to have had the theoretical and practical training those young men will have to start life with. After partaking of the hospitalities of the institution I wended mv way back to the railway well satisfied with my day’s outing.