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Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JULY 5, 1941. A SPLENDID ASSET.

'JTHEIiE can be no doubt that the Wairarapa Training Farm at Penrose is capable of serving a very valuable purpose in enabling returned soldiers of the present war who wish to do. so to prepare themselves for a life on the land, and the suggestion to that effect made by the chairman ol the. board of trustees f . administering the property (Mr. Dunean McGregor) should gain ready approval and support. That the advantageous facilities for training offered at the Penrose establishment have been turned as yet much less extensively to account than had been hoped certainly reflects in no way either on the generosity of its founders or on the public-spirited enterprise with which the property has been administered. Following on the training of 53 returned soldiers of the Great War Tn 1919 and in the next year or two, great difficulties, including the redemption of a heavy burden of debt, have been - overcome by the trustees. Today, thanks to prudent. . • and capable management, the Training Farm is in a strong financial position. It is less satisfactory that enter])!isi.ng efforts made by the trustees during the post-war period, with the co-operation of the Education Department, to develop, a. permanent centre of agricultural training at Penrose, met with an extraordinarily poor response. The only conclusion possible in the circumstances is that in this fine agricultural district, as in a good many other parts of the Dominion, the value of methodised agricultural education is very far from being appreciated as it ought to be. Within the last few years, however, members of. the agricultural class at Tvairarapa College have been receiving practical instruction at the Training Farm—parties of up to three boys attending successively, each lor a week at a time —- and a beginning has thus been made on which may be built as time goes on. It is good news that the use of the farm lor the training of returned soldiers would not affect the arrangement for giving instruction to the college pupils. All concerned no doubt will be agreed that the. whole question of soldier settlement must be approached with. due caution and that every endeavour must be made to. avoid a repetition of the unhappy results ol much ol lhe soldier settlement that followed the war of 1914-IS. . Strict safeguards should be insisted upon in regard to the capital load imposed on soldier settlers, as well as in the matter ol their qualifications and capabilities. Carefid account must be taken, too, of the marketing outlook and of the legitimate scope for expansion that exists in this or that branch of primary industry. This implies, amongst other things, a careful investigation ol all branches of land industry, and not least of new branches that might be opened up. The most enterprising use of the Wairarapa Training Farm in the interests'of returned soldiers can touch these problems only in part, but it may do that m a very helpful wav. It can offer to soldier trainees courses of a practical kind in shee]) and dairy farming. Another branch of land industry which has been developed on the farm and should be of interest to intending settlers is the production of approved seeds lor the sowing of pastures. It is no longer to be taken for granted that there is indefinite scope for expansion in those leading branches of our primary industry—shee]) and dairy farming with which the Training Farm is or may be concerned, but pastoral industiy takes and will continue to take a very important place in our national economy and may reasonably be expected to attract a proportion of our returning soldiers. With farming industiy faced by problems of growing complexity it becomes ol: course more than ever necessary that those who engage in it should be given the best possible training for their task. A wise and enterprising use of the Wairarapa Training Farm evidently, may be made to contribute in a very important degree Io the successful and satisfactory establishment of soldier settlers on the land.

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Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAITA19410705.2.16

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 July 1941, Page 4

Word count
Tapeke kupu
679

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JULY 5, 1941. A SPLENDID ASSET. Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 July 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JULY 5, 1941. A SPLENDID ASSET. Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 July 1941, Page 4

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