PRIMARY PRODUCERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 November 1921, Page 7

PRIMARY PRODUCERS.

“MUST BE KEPT GOING,” BETTER TIMES EXPECTED. Reference to general agricultural affairs, and the dependence of the Dominion’s prosperity on the primary industries was made by the president of the Taranaki Agricultural Society (Mr. W. B. Grant) in addressing members at the annual meeting yesterday. He said:

“During the past year conditions regarding agriculture generally have not been so good as during the previous twelve months. The conditions prevailing in the wool market, and the market for fat stock have caused a good deal of voncern. Taranaki being mostly a dairying district has not been so hard hit as many districts. “In some parts of the Dominion things are not too good at all. It was the record export of dairy produce which saved the Dominion last season, and it is' absolutely necessary to the prosperity of the Dominion that the primary producers should be successful. Primary producers must be kept going at all costs. The shortness of money at the present time is the greatest drawback to increased production in this country. During the war period it was the higher prices that brought money into the Dominion, not increased production as some would lead us to believe.

There is every reason to believe that things will improve considerably in the near future, but economy must be given the place o-f extravagance, which we all must admit has gone on during our prosperous times. We have had higher prices for our produce and we have spent our money freely. With prosperity comes the desire to take things easy. Money is not so much valued. By taking things easy production becomes less, and it is this slackening off in production which has been the cause of a good deal of the present financial trouble. The banks were among the first to realise that people were spending unwisely, and they accordingly adopted measures to stop it before it was too late. Each and all of us will now have to be satisfied with a little less. The various sections of the community will have to pull together and things will soon right themselves. “It is pleasing to note that agriculture is playing an important part in the education of our children in our schools to-day. This is a thing that should be encouraged by us- as much as possible. With the higher prices of land farming must be carried on in a more business like way. and because the prosperity of the Dominion depends mainly upon what is produced from the land, then we must encourage our children to take to the land, and in their education try to fit them for it. “The formation of boys and girls’ clubs, if carried out on proper lines will, no doubt, be a splendid thing, but it will have to be run on proper lines or else the boys and girls will soon lose interest in it. It is no use laying down hard and fast rules on the cultivation of the crops. The children must be left to think for themselves, and discover results for themselves. Personal experience is wort hmorp than all the books on agriculture put together.”