Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 1939. OUR ECONOMIC MAINSTAY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 June 1939, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JUNE 17, 1939. OUR ECONOMIC MAINSTAY.

A GREAT deal of what, the Minister of Agriculture (All- Lee Martin) had to sav in an address at the gradual ion ceremouj at Massey' College on Thursday .will command the ready ap-pi-oval oi l Linking people. As the Alm,star observed agricultural and pastoral industry upon which the economic prosperity of the Dominion has been built must long continue to be its economic mainstay. Secondary industries are essential to any progressive country which aspires to carry moie t a a comparatively small population and to develop a J rounded economic and social life, but no well-ordered eou» u > can afford, to neglect an enterprising and well-directed use ol its land in farming industry. * All must agree with Mr Lee Martin that the days are gone when one could say that the only requisite loi iaimmg in r ew Zealand was indomitable energy and that agriculture m t Dominion must now enter upon a new era m which successlu farming will consist, of a great deal more than mere y exploiting the natural store of fertility. The experience oi the Dominion in this matter is not, of course, peculiar. i\o countiy in ti e world has in its land a “natural store oi. fertility which maj be drawn upon indefinitely. Here and there a lew lavoiiiec areas such as the delta of the Nile, may be fertilised by annual floods, at the expense of lands that are being eroded m the higher reaches of rivers, but virtually all the arable land oi the earth, even where originally it was richest and nine i pasture land also, must be fertilised in order that it may produce. At one lime it was thought that lands in some ol the Eastern States of America—lands on which heavy forests were cleared from a twenty foot depth of black soil—were endowed with a virtually inexhaustible fertility Some twenty years of farming experience showed, however, that even these lands must be fertilised in order that crops might be maintained. In New Zealand an unwise destruction of forest in pioneering and later days has so aggravated problems of soil deterioration and erosion that in some instances the indefinite abandonment of lands, save for afforestation where that is practicable, appears to be inevitable. There is splendid scope in the Dominion, however, for an enterprising development of scientific farming. As the Minister of Agriculture observed. It is for the research workers in many fields to find out what must be done to replenish the fertility of our soils and to correct any tendency to ill-health in our animals, but it is quite impossible lor the scientist to tell the farmer in every case how he must set about applying this knowledge. Future productivity of the s land will depend upon the extent to which we are prepared to face and deal with the problems which confront us today. It undoubtedly is becoming ever more necessary that farmers should be able to apply the teachings of science to the conduct of their industry, but that is not by any means the whole story. One of the greatest demands made upon the farmer is that he should adapt his production to the markets that are offering. An improving standard of quality in products is always worth striving for, but the farmers of this country might be very unwise indeed if they continued to.concentrate their efforts solely upon expanding the output and improving the quality of the few staple products upon which the Dominion now depends so largely.' Much as export markets fail at times, there can be no quick or considerable variation in the main stream of production as it now rpiis in this country, but there is or should be every incentive to make the most of what measures of variation are possible. The condition of a country as largely specialised in agricultural and pastoral production as is New Zealand is in great contrast to that of a country industrialised by modern standards. This Dominion has little enough cause to envy some features of modern industrialisation in countries of older development and larger population. There is a happy medium to be approached, however. Might not that approach be made, in this country, by developments of farming, in association with other industries, which would reduce progressively, though perhaps only gradually, our dependence on external markets? In spite of some foolishly derogatory remarks that have been made of late about the poverty of its natural resources, " ill is country is well able to support largely self-supporting communities, engaging more or less co-operatively in farming and manufacturing industries. The opening up of new' branches of agriculture—particularly the production of additional materials which might be processed in factories in rural areas in the Dominion —would contribute happily to development and progress on these Hues. Some at least of the talk that is heard about uneconomic industries is nonsense. Broadly speaking, any industry is economic in a given country if its products can* be exchanged for those of agricultural industry on terms mutually satisfactory to the respective producers. Problems of soil fertility and stock diseases need all the attention from research workers and farmers that the Minister of Agriculture has bespoken for them. It is very necessary also, however, that those engaged in farming industry should consider from the broadest, standpoint how their industry may be developed with the greatest possible advantage to themselves and to the Dominion.