SCIENCE AND THE FARM.

Waipa Post, Volume II, Issue 64, 24 November 1911, Page 2

SCIENCE AND THE FARM.

IN lijipofjntry are ferifentists more aliverto the extreme.importance of scientific ateiculllife than in the TJhited America, ..but, ,a ] gj.iii%ur' is diffiihvgetting the.|riain body of ;fjie farniers to wale'iip to the r fact tlisft as the wor|d progresses so mtlsti the grea&farming inthaffhf Id of science lis imperative to ojtaiin the best ' Speakfng recejitkf Siil Kansas, : v his with ithe prospectfof '.doubled population, in io(.t), " AmericaAvill continue to and fVed"them' tyell, v out oF'her own soiL" An : considers this'qitttespas&iple, because ■Y far riling, , and a %jMv market,.;the farmer h A &f| : alreaqy learned ftb increase (^l^&nousiy. l . his contribution to cthe 'world's supply of food." The -farmer/''is, ho'wever, proverbially conservative, and though he has increased production by the use of in place of mere hand implements he has not acquired the scien|ifje knowledge which' would have helped him to apply his new inventions to the best advantage, and the result has been to a great extent merely soil impoverishment. "'The nineteenth century farmer," Professor H. Wallace declares, " was, speaking generally, no fanner at all, but a miner, a soil robber. There was a good farmer here and :here, a good settlement here and :here, but speaking generally, . :here was no farming, nothing jut mining. The nineteenthcentury farmer sold the stored ertility of ages at the bare cost >f mining it. With his gang)lough and his four-to-eight ection harrow, he could do more oil-robbing in five years than lis grandfather could do in his /hole lifetime. It is hard lo get , armers of this class to under-

stand the philosophy of crop rotation, of the natural movement

of" water in the soil, or of the ideal seed-bed or the fitness of certain soils for certain crops — in short of the requirements of plant and animal life, or to persuade them to active co-operation with each other or to get them'in actual touch and sympathy with the new agriculture. This is an educational process, and therefore slow, even when there is a disposition to acquire the knowledge." The " New York Times'' quite agrees with this view and insists that " the old-time farmer must disappear, if the country is to fulfil its destiny. The real farmers of this hour, the men who are making farming pay, are the equals of the city man in breadth of culture and knowledge of the world. But there are too few of them." There is much in the above that the New Zealand farmer may well and wisely ponder over.