The Daily News. SATURDAY, JUNE 27, 1914. AGRICULTURAL INSTRUCTION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 32, 27 June 1914, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, JUNE 27, 1914. AGRICULTURAL INSTRUCTION.

We trust the effort being made by the Director of Technical Instruction in New Plymouth to establish a class for the teaching of agricultural subjects will meet with the support it deserves. It is a distinctly forward move, and if given the necessary support should lead to the inaguration of a miniature Lincoln College in North Taranaki. Mr. Gray, the Director, proposes to make a modest commencement. He intends to obtain the use of from five to ten acres of land and to work it on practical and scientific lines 'as a small farm. A competent instructor is to give ilia whole time to the instruction of students, who would also receive instruction in every subject appertaining to the working of a farm, from dairy science to elementary plumbing. Engineering, he proposes, will be taught to a standard enabling students to thoroughly understand and repair ordinary farm machinery, including milking machines. Students would also be given a course of farm book-keeping. They would probably have to board in or near town, and Mr. Gray proposes to charge a fee sufficient to cover boarding expenses and cost of tuition. This he estimates at £SO each. Before launching the scheme he desires to have the names of twenty students. We trust he will be successful. Fifty pounds a year is no doubt a tidy sum for a dairy farmer to find for the education of his son, but it would prove a very profitable investment. Most men are fireij with the very laudable ambition to see their children given a better "start" in life than they themselves had, and to this end they bend their energies and devote their time, but there exists no better way of accomplishing this than by equipping their .children with athorough, practical education. This district depends almost entirely upon the dairy industry, and if it is to progress, more must be taken off the land. That this can be accomplished is shown by what is being done in less favoied countries in Europe. Denmark is a striking instance. It is a country never intended by Nature to produce butter 1 or cheese, but it managed to export last year £28,000,000. worth of dairy produce. Denmark has an area of some 15,592 squaro miles, —roughly tea million acres —much of which is waste and poor land. Taranaki is one fourth the size of Denmark, the land is naturally richer and • the climate more favorable. Taranaki exported dairy produce last year to the' value of about one and three-quarter millions sterling. If we had reached the stage of the Danes our exports would have been over seven millions. How is it that the Danes are extracting so • much wealth from their comparatively poor lands? Simply by applying science t'> their operations. How very thor- ' oughly the Danes go about their work is shown by Sir Eider Haggard in his work, "Rural Denmark," which, by the way, can be profitably read by every dairyman in Taranaki. He will put the book down with a feeling of thankfulness that his lot is cast in such a plea- j sant place as Taranaki is by comparison with 'Denmark, and also with a keener perception of the great opportunities before him here. The Danes have demonstrated beyond all doubt the valut of scientific instruction in all matters connected with agriculture, and it is surprising that we in New Zealand have 1 not followed and copied their methods more than we have. Practical and thorough education of the young is the basis of their system, and it would pay this country handsomely to establish similar schools of agricultural instruction Bi convenient centres. But the authorities are so busily engaged in other matters of less consequence that they have no time to devote to it. They readily admit the importance of the primary industries, but with the execp. tion of the work done by the Agricultural Department at the experimental farms and at Lincoln College, no systematic effort is made to train the young idea to obtain the maximum results from the land he is destined to husband. This is left to Education Boards, who generally have more to do than can be \ done with the limited finances available. ' The proposal of the Director of Technical ' Education to strike out on Ills own and make a start with a very necessary and ] valuable work is all the more deserving i of encouragement, and we trust it will ! appeal so favorably to the farmers of \ the district that lie will be iible to put j his plan into operation ai an early ' date. Once started, we have no doubt; ! of the result. '