YOUNG FARMERS’ CLUBS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 June 1938, Page 3

YOUNG FARMERS’ CLUBS

THEIR EDUCATIONAL VALUE AN IMPRESSIVE PARADE (By Telegraph—Press Association.) PALMERSTON NORTH, June 16. The cavalcade of agriculture and parade of young men and women organised by executive members of the Young Farmers’ Clubs was the largest gathering of the Young Farmers’ Clubs organisation ever held in the Dominion. It was arranged with a view to impressing on the public the growth and objects of the movement. Present at the display were the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon W. E. Parry, and his official party, Mr J. Hodgens, M.P. for Palmerston North, and Mr E. W. Barnett, a member of the Manawatu executive of the Young Farmers’ Club. “First of all I must congratulate the Young Farmers’ Clubs on the wonderful manifestation of the work and its educational value to the community,” said Mr Parry. “I am proud to say that.the Government has assisted and fostered the work of the clubs. The Minister of Agricture has always taken a very great interest in them.” Mr Parry said the young farmers organisation would assist him greatly in the national health and physical education scheme, and that members present impressed him as being the best specimens of young men and women in New Zealand.

Comparing the Australian exhibition of the evolution of farming machinery methods, Mr Parry said the cavalcade of agriculture was even better in that it presented typical practical improvement, not merely symbolical. He said it would facilitate greatly the problem of what sort of display would be given in the centennial year. The co-operation of young farmers’ clubs was asked by Mr Parry in the work of national health and physical education. He was interested in the club’s enthusiasm for breeding horses, he said. It would be tragic for the horse to go by the board. He trusted that there would always be encouragement for the breeding of a good type of horse. Discussing the clubs’ principle to have nothing to do with politics, Mr Parry said it was a wise course to follow. “I would say to you, do not let any particular party in politics use your organisation for its own ends as clubs,” he said. The acting-Director-General of Agriculture, Mr E. J. Fawcett, said he was impressed by the vivid exhibition of the development and history of agriculture presented in the cavalcade. It was the duty of young farmers to maintain the heritage so well established by their fathers and grandfathers. Agriculture was a profession which required initiative and knowledge greater than any other.: “Men who leave farms to go to cities to drive lorries and get more money would never have made good farmers, anyway; we need not worry about them,” he said. If young farmers held to the heritage of the older generation there was no need to fear for the future of agriculture in New Zealand. Mr Barnett thanked Mr Parry, Mr Fawcett and Mr Hodgens for their attendance. He said if the young farmers’ clubs flourished they would be the greatest revitalising factor New Zealand had even seen.