COTTAGE FARMING.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2734, 6 November 1894, Page 3

COTTAGE FARMING.

Mr Gladstone made his first public speech since his retirement from political life, at the distribution of prizes at the Buckley and Hawarden Society’s flower show, at which there were 917 exhibitors and 15,000 visitors. Mr Gladstone spoke as follows on the importance of cottage farming—The French have long been given in a much greater degree than we are to what they call la-petite culture —the small culture —that is, the culture of minor and secondary objects connected with agricultural pursuits. It may appear at if these were in themselves unimportant. The transactions in a little garden cannqt be upon a very large scale, but when the aggregate of these branches of the small culture comes to be made up it is a vast aggregate and you may depend upon it that even the commerce of this country may derive serious and important extension from the extension of these branches of the smaller cultivations, and that nothing is more likely to bring about the extension than the multiplication of institutions such as that of the society which is responsible for the present flower show. I do believe that the example of Hawarden, which began to be set about 20 years ago, has beep useful in this respect; and these are times when those whose business it is to draw forth the resources of the earth for the service of man have been severely visited, and cannot afford to neglect any rational and probable means of adding to their own comforts and advantages of others, because whatever is produced from the earth in excess of what we have previously had confers a double benefit both upon producers and \rpon those for whose use the particular commodity is brought into existence. Ido hope that many of you will deem this subject as not unworthy of serious consideration. It certainly ja my behef that much may be dona in many branches of cultivation outside what have hitherto been considered the principal pursuits of the farmer; much may bo done for bettering the position of the agricultural classes, and for enabling the community at large to profit more abundantly by the ample powers with which God has endowed the earth for ministering to the means of our subsisteuc ■> and our enjoyment. (Cheers.)