SCIENTIFIC FARMING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 297, 8 May 1913, Page 4

SCIENTIFIC FARMING.

Judging by a cablegram received to-day, England is waking up to the fact that farming is not the purely bucolic pursuit that a heritage of tradition attributes to it. Speaking at the Farmers' Club in London. Lord Milner said that theie existed an immense need for State encouragement of scientific agricultural education, aud that the increase of small holders was essential to the country's welfare. We in New Zealand have long realised this necessity, and have taken some practical steps towards giving effect to it, not only by legislation but by the establishment of State Farms and Agricultural Colleges, and by placing the administration of the hind, to a certain extent, in the hands of expert Departmental officers. lu the colonies we have come to regard agriculture as a science, and not as a mere tilling of the land. As population increases we require a more intense cultivation and closer settlement, and virgin land which has served its purpose in the early years of occupation having grown starved has to be fed by scientific methods. The farmor of the future, if he is to succeed, must have at least a primary knowledge of chemistry and of soil constituents and manures. If this is true of a new country, how much truer must it be in a land where the soil has been under cultivation for centuries? This is essentially a legitimate field of excursion for the State, and the money expended in its encouragement will be more than amply repaid. The man who can make two blades of grass grow where one originally grew is proverbially as much a benefactor to his country as its best

statesmen and its best solilierg, and the only way to achieve this ambition is by the- careful study of modern methods and the application of modern scientific discoveries to this important braneli of industry. We are already a stage in advance of the Motherland in this respect, but we need not flatter ourselves that we have reached the limit of our possibilities. There is still much to be done in the matter of more methodical instruction and the development of our agricultural colleges and farms of instruc-

tion and experiment. Fortunately these matters are removed from the field of party politics, and successive Governments have continued to realise their responsibilities in this direction with commendable zeal. But there must bo no resting on our oars if the land is to be made to'blossom as only a country like our own can do.