THE EXPERIMENTAL STATIONS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 199, 27 September 1909, Page 4

THE EXPERIMENTAL STATIONS

IMPORTANT MINISTERIAL STATEMENT. MOrMAITAKI TO BE CONTINUED. STATIONS TO BE SPECIALISED INSTITUTIONS. The future policy in regard to the experimental stations of the Department of Agriculture is a subject about which there has been considerable speculation of late. This is now apparently settled so far as the Minister of Agriculture is concerned, and it is such a- sane and admirable policy that we may take it with every confidence as the fixed lines on which development of these important centres of activity will proceed. Speaking lir*l of all of the need of providing a practical and economical training for the sons of farmers, Mr. Mackenzie <aid there had been some talk of doing away with the Moumahaki State Farm, but he had issued instructions to ascertain whether it was possible to extend the area so that it could become an apprentice farm for working agriculturists.

This was. Hp .said, a time for specialisation. and he wanted to confine each State farm to some special work. Taking the North Island, they could say that Waerenga would be the place foi experimental and demonstration work in connection with fruit culture; Rui* kura for milk production, bee culture, anl the training of youths in practical farming: Weraroa for milk and fruit, and, if Mr. W. C. Buchanan's offer were taken up. for the most important of all reforms in agriculture, namely, plantbreeding and -seed-testing, as was done with such excellent results in America, Germany, and Denmark; while Moumahaki would be the place for the practical training course he had suggested. Of course, it might not be possible, concluded Mr. Mackenzie, to attain to all this at first, but these were the lines he was desiring to follow with the assistance of the Government and the officers of his Department.