RURAL EDUCATION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 3 May 1913, Page 5

RURAL EDUCATION.

WIRK IN THE NORTHERN WA--1 NGANUT DISTRICT. Agricultural education in the district high schools of the Wanganui Education 'Board is being conducted on sound and original lines. Practical field-work is the main feature, and this, being carried out under a capable director, Mr iR. A. Browne, is proving an effective means of imparting to the senior boys of the schools in question a good working knowledge of the various processes of rural economy based on correct underlying principles. It is gratifying to know that the lads have 'been extremely interested in the work, and as a consequence many of them are expected to take up farming pur-, suits in preference to city occupations, which have absorbed so many country boys in the past. The following is a synopsis of tho work of this season, the course in each ease lasting a fortnight:— At Hawera, Lit early August: (T> Incubator work; housing and feeding of fowls; (2) veterinary science, dealing n'lore especially with the dairy cow, and diseases of same; orchard work; pruning and spraying of local orchards; (-1) manures and top-dressing, study of pastures; (o) Babcock text, herd-testing.

During the course special attention was directed to veterinary science, to orchard work, ana to top-dressing. Veterinary work was taken in ths form of lectures, as demonstrations and practical work in the field, and at might lantern-slides were used with good effect. orchard work took on so well that more orchards were available than could be attended to. Farmers arc keenly supporting the clftss in top-dressing, giving the use of their paddocks and finding the necessary manures for use during the coming winter. At Haw-era, in early December: (1) Shearing; <2) wooi-sorting; (3) pastures and their treatment; (4) manuring and sowing mangels, carrots, turnips, and lucerne; (5) dairy work; use of .Babcock machine, and lactometer; calculation of added witter, herd-testing continued. Special features in this course were the classes in shearing and woolsorting. A>s soon as the lads had sufficient practice, owners freely offered the use of sheds, and allowed the students to shear their flocks umder actual shearing conditions. The lads thoroughly entered into the spirit of the work, working on some days from 7 a.m. till 6 p.m. At the end of the course farmers provided £jtnds, and competitions were held in shearing, wool-sorting, and in milktesting. At Moumahaka Experimental Farm, in February: (1) Weeding and thinning root crops, turnips, carrots, and mangels; (2) lucerne growing, also saving of crop as hay or ensilage; (3) the potato: seed-selection, storing, and sprouting; (4) study of grass and other trial plots; (o) selection as applied to cereals —wheat, oat, aaid rye-corn v arietie& and strains; (6) stacking; >7) veterinary work: study of cow, horse and sheep, with special reference to the dairy cow, and diseases of these; (8) orchard work in season.

The lads were thoroughly interested in their work at the farm, and are anxious to return, especially to carry out winter spraying and pruning operations in the orchard, and later on to ithear all the sheep available. For tliis course only senior boys will be taken—i.e., those between fifteen and seventeen years of age.—Journal of agriculture.