Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, TUESDAY, MARCH 5,-1912. SCIENCE AND AGRICULTURE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12702, 5 March 1912, Page 4

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, TUESDAY, MARCH 5,-1912. SCIENCE AND AGRICULTURE.

It is a matter for regret that the agricultural -experts from Uruguay now touring the Dominion could not- have included Gisborne m the centres visited, not so much for what they might have learnt m this district, as on account of the zest that would have been given to the study of agriculture science by our own youths. It has been stated that tlie most striking thing about flic visitors, m view of the importance of their mission, is their exti'eme youth, and yet they are all agricultural experts, whose versality and deep erudition .'astonished Mr J. Duncan, the assistant director of the Dominion Department of Agriculture. They have all taken the highest degrees possible m agriculture, at the University of Monte Video. The organisation of the party 'has been so arranged that each man specialises m a particular branch of agriculture or stock-raising, and concentrates his attention on that alone. When they return to Uruguay each man prepares an individual report and there will also be a general report drafted, all being published and distributed by the Government. These students have already spent eight months m Europe, and m the course of their tour have visited France, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Belgium, and Italy, and prior to coming to New Zealand had spent a month m Australia. Surely a tour of this kind must inspire our youths who are sooner or later to be associated with pastoral or agricultural pursuits with an ambition to make' the best of their opportunities and take pride m their occupations. Senor Montero Bustamentay New Zealand Consul for Uruguay, m the course of an interview, explained that Uruguay is very similar m many respects to New Zealand. Its soil is very rich and fertile, but its climate a little hotter than thai of tlie Dominion. It's 'population is about the" same. The country is all flat, and 'the agricultural and pastoral industries are of first, importance. The great problem of the country is to combine the two industries. Hitherto '• their stock has been raised upon natural pasturage, of which there has been an abundance. The present Government, however, is desirous of promoting the 'combination of agriculture and stock breeding.* It desires to improve the fodder ancL so to improve the stock, thus making nhe two industries interdependent. The members of the commission are desirous of studying all the methods employed m agricultural and pastoral pursuits m all countries, m order, to perceive m practice and on a. large scale as national industries those operations with which they are perfectly familiar theoretically, but only by means of text books and on the small scale possible m experimental farms, with which the university is well supplied. With the experience gained m their travels the young men hope to give a stimulus to the agricultural and pastoral industries m their own country, the ideal which they are striving for being that which New Zealand has m a large measure attained, tlie progressive development of the agricultural and pastoral industries side by side and interdependently. The Consul stated that m Uruguay the people have thirty million sheep, chiefly .inerinoes and Shropshires, and ten million cattle, principally of the" Shorthorn and Hereford breeds. Their chief agricultural product is wheat, and they have a. big acreage under cultivation. They have already a large" export' trade. They have frozen meat works, and m their special line. of export, which is beef, they do 1 a big trade \\ith all American and European countries-." The Uruguayan mission should cause us to' take greater pride m the work of our own Agricultural Department, and to support and encourage the efforts being made for the .impi'ovement of all matters connected with the productivity, of, the soil. If it is worth while for Uruguay to send a band of energetic young experts over such a wide area to gain information to aid m scientific development of the industries named it is equally (desirable for the young' men of this Dominion to make the best of the advantages we 'already possess.