The Daily News. SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 1912. THE MAKING OF FARMERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 255, 27 April 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 1912. THE MAKING OF FARMERS.

There is the amplest justification for the scheme outlined by the Prime Minister (Hon. T. Mackenzie) for the expenditure of money 011 agricultural education. We have always insisted that the time must arrive when the enormous price of land, determined not only by its capacity to produce, but on the estimate of boomsters, would make it necessary to farm much more scientifically than is now the rule. Scientific farming will be found exceedingly necessary in Taranaki, which depends so very largely on cows. At Hamilton tbo other day Mr. Mackenzie expressed gladness that his scheme far agricultural education was being received kindly by politicians of all colots. The politician who would object to greater knowledge and larger production would be a fool, and even the most pronounced windbags who have lately been wailing that "we have nothing to protect" can be induced to see that food is the all-in-all of the people, that everything depends absolutely on the land products, and that land products depend on the intelligence, enterprise and knowledge of the farmer. The State will undertake the education of agricultural cadets at the schools to be established at the Government experimental farms. The value of the education of these youths will be gauged by the number of them who become agriculturalists. It should be a condition of studentship that the youngsters who will be scattered among the Government faims at Moumahaki, Wereroa, Ruakura and the farms to be established in the South shall become New Zealand agriculturalists. The Premier has shown that the cost of the education of these young men will be met by their labor, which is a first-class idea,, unless they are educated for export. The Government can afford to be generous to young agriculturalists, for the property of the country cannot survive without them. If it were understood at the beginning of this new enterprise that no cadet would go land-hungry when he had left the Government farms the inducement to study at them would be increased. Assuredly these young men would carry into many districts new knowledge that would be assimilated generally, much to the advantage of the country as a whole. The Premier remarked that if New Zealand farmers were to meet the increasing cost of labor, and the advance in the price of land, the productive capacity of their soil must be increased, and related that Mr. Cuddie, of the dairying division, had estimated that improvements in the milk yield of our herds alone could 1 increase the value of our dairy exports by £1,500,000. Of course this figure is quoted on the assumption that the present excellence of the New Zealand dairy industry will be maintained. It is unlikely that it will he. This, however, is the best possible reason for inducing the largest production from the least land, the careful and scientific knowledge of the best kind of cows, and the most up-to-date ideas in regard to manuring, j There is. in our opinion, no possible

doubt that it will he necessary in the near Mure, especially in many parts of Taranaki, where much has been taken from the soil and little put in it, that a system of crop rotation must be used in connection with dairy farming. It will be found that this is necessary to preserve the life of land, the chief use ot which is to grow grass. The release of, say, 200 well-trained agricultural students a year, will make farming popular as distinct from mere branches of farming. It is not every dairyman who is really a farmer in the true sense of the word, and it will be necessary that he shall he a real farmer pretty soon. The farm is the parent of the State and the State draws almost its whole sustenance from the land. No other subject is worth so much careful qnd sane discussion, and there is no subject that equals in importance the adequate settlement of the land. To increase the productivity of present holdings is a grand ideal, but to increase the number of holdings and sdttlers is a far better one. A possible slump in' New Zealand would emphasise the necessity of more extensive settlement under intensive cultivation; it would reduce the price of land to its normal and productive value, and' it would reduce the number of parasites who use land as a method of gambling. The evils of a poorer market will increase industry and application, reduce speculation and induce thrift. Lean years are not absolutely without advantage.