DEBATING CONTEST

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 November 1940, Page 8

DEBATING CONTEST

DISTRICT YOUNG FARMERS ADVANCEMENT OF AGRICULTURE CONTENTIONS OF RIVAL TEAMS In the final of the Young Farmers' Clubs’ district debating contest, which, as announced yesterday, was won by Carterton against Alfredton, the subject being: "That the practical farmer has contributed more to the advancement of agriculture than the scientist,” the affirmative was taken by Carterton and the negative by Alfredton. Contesting the affirmative side the Carterton team, was ably led by Mr B. Brasell whose main contention was that farming had been advanced for many thousands of years by practical farmers before the scientist even began to direct his attention to the subject. He suggested also that during the relatively short period over which science had begun to affect farming it had done almost as much to destroy as to improve farming efficiency and gave as instances the disruptive effect on agriculture of the industrial revolutionin England and the destructive power of scientific warfare.

This argument was extended by Messrs A. Fisher and W. Campin, the former pointing out that even where scientific discoveries had aided agriculture, it still remained for the practical farmer to apply these to the advancement of the industry. Mr Campin, who ablj' criticised some of the claims of his opponents, particularly stressed the enormous advances made in animal breeding to which the scientist admitted that he had made little contribution.

In leading the negative argument for Alfredton Mr T. Shirtcliff contended that it was unfair to revert back to “the dark ages” and that the argument should refer only to the period of say the last 100 years over which scientific research and investigation had concerned itself with agriculture. It was over this period that the greatest advances had been made and these were due largely to the development of mechanisation which in turn was made possible by scientific research. He claimed too that the development of artificial fertilisers, which was entirely to the credit of the scientist, was alone almost sufficient to establish his case.

In support, Mr A. Heckler dealt chiefly with the advances made in veterinary science and stressed the enormous benefit of disease control and even of the use of disinfectants alone, which had been made possible by the science of bacteriology. Although admitting that perhaps little had been done by the scientist to assist the animal breeder, Mr S. Ross dealt at length with advances in the science of plant breeding which had so enormously increased the productivity of our crops and pasture plants and which had made possible the seed certification scheme. In his summing up Mr Shirtcliffe claimed that the practical farmer himself admitted the claims of science whenever any epidemic or similar I trouble occurred, by immediately calling in the aid of the scientist. Mr Brasell, in his final remarks for the affirmative, maintained that all the benefits conferred by science on agriculture over the past fifty years were still insufficient by far, to outweight the steady practical progress made by the farmer from the time when the first primitive hunter commenced to domesticate instead of hunt his animals.