TEACHING AGRICULTURE.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 March 1922, Page 5

TEACHING AGRICULTURE.

TARANAKI LEADS. ENCOURAGEMENT WANTED. Speaking at the opening of the Ngaere School show and field day yesterday, Mr. R. Masters, M.P., regretted that more was not done to foster agricultural instruction among the young people. He said that Taranaki led New Zealand in this respect, and it was pleasing to know that the Dominion, conference of education took the standard of agricultural work in Taranaki as the basis for their future operations. About 90 per cent, of the prim iry schools in New Zealand taught elementary agriculture, but Ngaere had already entered upon the practical stage. At the Eltham Horticultural Show the Ngaere School gained 27 prizes, and also the points prize. Mr. Masters regretted that the present New Zealand Government and previous Governments were backward in granting money for the furtherance of boys’ and girls’ agricultural clubs as compared with other countries. The Economies Committee had cut out the grants on estimates for the encouragement of the une —a paltry £5O0 —and this, he thought, was carrying economy too fa,. In the United States agriculture was taken a regular part of school instruction, and in the first year after starting the scheme the Government voted £300,000 for boys’ and girls’ clubs alone. “Agricultural experimental work and education are fully appreciated in Canada,” said Mr. Masters. “The Canadian Parliament made appropriations totalling 4,366,000 dollars for’ the 1920-21 season, as against 3,648,000 dollars the previous year. This does not take account of the amounts voted by the various provincial Legislatures.” “Although New Zealand is an agricultural country,” said Mr. Masters, “we are not doing as much for this branch as should be done.”

A show such as that at Ngaere was a great incentive to push the work of agriculture. In oui educational institutions we had professors of foreign languages, mathematics, etc., and we had now reached the stage where it was just as necessary to have professors of agriculture. The price of land must be gauged by what it produces, and the people of Taranaki were now having this fact brought home to them as never before. The best way to make the high-priced land produce to its value was by aiding the agricultural instruction of the young people. The land in the district was certainly producing much more than it did some years ago, but there was still much room to increase its productivity.