STATE FARMS

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2090, 27 May 1907, Page 3

STATE FARMS

THEIR USEFULNESS OUTLIVED

Speaking to a Lyttelton Times reporter, with reference to the State farms, the Minister for Lands said that their position was duo mainly to the fact that they were scattered all over the place in the North Island, and could not therefore be as closely administered as yyas desirable. They wero not really oxporimental farms in' tile proper sense of tlio word, but were just ordinary agricultural farms of very little, use to tlio settlers for the purposes of illustration. Theie were exceptions to this, of course, but speaking broadly the farms had outlived their unsofulness. Agriculture in the South Island was more advanced than it was in the North Island, and in tlio earlier stages of cultivation there the farms might have been of some use, but now that the farm or of the North Island was growing more advanced in his methods the usefulness of the farms was glowing less, for they could teach him very little that-lie did not know. As a matter of fact, it was difficult to know where all the experimental farms were got from. Some of them had been political legacies, and not very desirable legacies at that. Mr. McNab added that for tlic first time lie intended tiiis year to have the cost of their administration and up-keep taken out in a separate bal-ance-sheet, so that it might bo seen what they were costing the country. The difficulty of centralising lay m the fact it was always expensive to close down a State institution and replace it in some other form. What was really wanted was that the farms should be made experimental stations in „ more modern manner, and that thev should bo equipped and run upon scientific and up-to-date lines', -but this would cost a lot of money in theii

present scattered condition. It was not intended, the Minister said, to establish a State farm in tlio South Island. The farms had been established in the North, apparently on account of the North Island being evidently intended as the fruit-grow-

ing part of the colony, and it was better adapted for growing fruit side by side with other forms of agriculture than was the South.