AGRICULTURE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 5 August 1907, Page 2

AGRICULTURE.

HE CONFERENCE AND EDUCATION NEW SHEEP AND CATTLE PROPOSALS. THE NEGLECTED DAIRYMAN. (Special to "News"). Wellington, August 2. July 31st and August Ist will be memorable for the great educational par* ey that took place as an adjunct to ( ho New Zealand Agricultural Conferiice. It was held under distinguished latronage, and seemed to mark a final ecognition that the education of the Education Department and the eduea.ioii an dispensed by the Agricultural Jepartmeut are inseparably welded together. The Minister of Agriculture ind the Minister for Education sat side jy side, and around them were the Act-ng-Inspector-General, Dr the jrineipal of Wellington Training College, secretary t»f Wellington Education Board, directors of technical education in Auckland and Wellington, and the Department's inspector of those branches jf education, the editor of the School Journal, agricultural instructors from Wellington, Canterbury, and the district )f Marlborough, Nelson, Westland and jirey, and the Agricultural Department'* experts. The question opened with a motion from the Auckland technical director for central rural schools where agriculture would be the chief topic of instruction and everything else mere appendages. Here the boys and girls of to-day would be turned into the skilled farmers of to-morrow or qualify for finishing touches at Lincoln College. The school gardens of to-day, said the mover, through lacking the complement of instruction inside the schools were often a farce. Hamilton would be a suitable spot, with the Ruakura experimental farm within visiting distance. Mr Cray, principal of the Wellington Train ing College, advocates suburban farms for city schools, where children could got occasional farm practice. Mr Fowlds indicated himself by figures to show the increase of agricutural classes which now existed in,all districts to the number of 304. Mr Gilruth quoted France, where boys are worked on training farms as farm boys, paid farm-boy wages, and turned out after two or three years as good practical farmers, with a bonus. The Hon. McNab bewailed the insuperable prejudice against modern innovations of the lifo-loug farmer. It should no longer be thought that the country was the place for toil and the city the place for pleasure. Scientific education would make farm life interesting. Mr Anderson advocated the teaching of tillage rather than type-writing. After the conference had slept the mover of the i motion, Mr George George, summed up the situation, and finally got an amended motion carried in favor of establishing an agricultural school at Hamilton^

where the chairman remarked the delegates to the next conference in 1909 at Auckland could dismount from the Main Trunk line and inspect the work. A lighter vein -.was struck when the Royal Show, with its £IOOO subsidy, Was talked about. Southland and Wairarapa feared that the honors, instead of going round, would be monopolised by Palmerston and Canterbury, and although the Cluistehurch delegate assured them nothiug was farther from his mind the Conference in one of its whims de-

dined to put it in the bond. The decision, therefore, was to ask for £IOOO subsidy for the North Island one year and the South Island the next, and the battle of the sites will become an annual event. Something tangible was accomplished when the scheme for a permanent committee was constructed. Hitherto there lias been an executive of four, a.l Aucklanders, because it was necessary for them to be near the secretary, who belongs to the Northern city. The scheme now adopted is for the other districts to appoint representatives of a general committee, who shall meet at times and places lixed by the executive. The principal shows were mentioned as suitable meeting places. The existence of Taranaki, Marlborough and Nelson appeared to have escaped the memory of the Conference in drafting tlie scheme, a slight which was promptly resented by the delegates concerned. Finally delegates were allotted to be elected by the combined agricultural association in the lollowing districts:—Canterbury, Otago, Southland, Wairarapa, Manawatu and Taranaki one each, Hawko's Bay and Gisborne one, and Nelson and Marirough one. The Aucklanders were reappointed as the central executive. One work of the general committee is -to weld the agricultural associations into a combination known as the State Agricultural and Pastoral Society- of New Zealand. The resolution asking the Government to give pastoral tenants better security of tenure and compensation for improvements ought to secure relief to the much-worried sheep farmers. Indictments against the Railway Department were hurled in like an avalanche, and much evidence of vexatious loss mainly through shortage of railway trucks was given. A number of resolutions containing suggestions for the Department were passed. The surprising absence of any inference to cow# in the order paper explained by the production jot a supplementary order paper deyefed entirely to Kgmont, llr Corrigwf' put the varioua proposals forward;'and, after a tendency to treat the cow proposals as a joke liall been checked by an appeal of Mr Morton's to the sense of fairness of the sheep farmers whom he had helped along with their pet proposals, matters went along swimmingly. The motion to prohibit the public sale of cows that have aborted fill they had been disinlected to the Department's satisfaction drew from Mr Ritchie an announcement that legislation on those lines was being prepared. It scarcely needed llr Corrigan's contention that in Taranaki, with its 140,000 cows, the unconscious introduction of an aborted cow might pollute a whole dairy. The chairman declared the sale of a polluted cow was a despicable fraud, and the meeting was with him. The motion was passed. The motion for the Government Veterinary to spcy and brand culled dairy cows met with more troubled waters. Mr Corrigan said it was desired to get rid of the robber cow and raise the butter average yield from 170 to 200 pounds. Mt Patullo said it wanted no

veterinary. He had himself speyed thirty cows ill Otago, and they lived. Mr Gilruth saicl it was not the speying that killed; it was the after blood poisoning. Many people never washed their face, let alone their hands, and if they speyed there would be a heavy death rate. Shooting, however, was preferable to speying. Dairymen should buy their cows on warranty. The motion was lost. A motion, however, for branding only was carried, and also a further motion that where leases have only live years to run the cost of improvements ordered by the Department shall be borne by the owners. Mr Rit?hie said legislation would be submitted to this effect.

A reproachful letter from Dr Levinge, of Christchureli, against the apparent ignoring of the dairy industry was read and a compensative motion was accordingly moved by the chairman and carlied, urging that the proposed inspection of dairies should be accompanied by assistance in testing milk yields. Mr Clifton said this would be done probahlv next season. Late at night the Conference presented a bundle of its resolutions to llie I'lemier, Tims ended the Conference.