H.—29b

9

are well managed, and the income from the estate should be of great assistance to agricultural education in liawke's Bay. In order to carry out the wishes of the testator, a sum of £1,300 per annum should be allocated from the income, £1,000 for twenty-five bursaries of £40 each to enable Hawke's Bay lads exclusively to receive a training in agriculture, and the remainder for a shcolarship or scholarships to enable a selected Hawke's Bay student or students to go to a University College, to take a degree of B.Ag. If the whole of the £1,300 were not used in any year any balance should revert to the trust. The Board further recommends that suitable land be procured for a Farm Training College in Hawke's Bay to be developed as soon as the success of the other Farm Training Colleges demonstrates the need for such a college in Hawke's Bay ; this land to be utilized as a demonstration farm in the meantime. Question (c).- How should such an institution or institutions be equipped as regards staff, laboratories, and farming land ? As, in the opinion of the Board, the time has not arrived for the establishment of one great School of Agriculture of University rank, the questions of staff, laboratories, and farming-land were not specially considered. It was clear from the evidence of experts that a considerable staff of professors and lecturers would be required, involving an annual cost of at least £10,000 for teaching alone, in addition to the annual cost of hostels and farming-lands, which could hardly be expected to be self-supporting, at any rate in the early stages of development of the college. As regards Farm Training Colleges the Board makes the following recommendations : — 1. Staff. —The staff would consist of the following : The College Principal; an agricultural graduate for every thirty students; a farm overseer capable of teaching and demonstrating farm practice ; skilled farm-workers specially selected so as to give instruction in farm handicrafts ; a horticulturist; besides a domestic staff to deal with the management of the hostel. 2. Equipment. —The laboratory and class-room facilities should be sufficient to render the teaching as concrete as possible, and to enable the proportion of time at present devoted to laboratory and class-room work to be largely increased in accordance with the Board's recommendations above. 3. Farming-land.—Having in mind the type of training which it thinks should be given at a Farm Training College, the Board considers that a large area of first-class land need not be used. Sufficient land to grow all necessary crops and carry enough live-stock to provide adequate facilities for practical demonstrations is all that the Board would regard as essential. For these purposes it is considered that 200 hundred acres of first-class land, or its equivalent, would suffice. 4-. Curriculum. —The Board recommends that the main subjects dealt with at Farm Training Colleges should be soils, fertilizers, crops, live-stock breeding and management, farm-management, farm economics, and horticulture. Special emphasis was placed on the importance of sound training in connection with farm economics by many witnesses with wide experience in farming matters ; while, as regards horticulture, the Board wishes to stress the opinion that no agricultural training would be complete without instruction in horticulture, and that therefore special provision should be made in Colleges of Agriculture and in Farm Training Colleges for this purpose. The Board is strongly of opinion that, apart altogether from its commercial importance and prospects, the asthetic value of horticulture amply justifies its inclusion in the course of agriculture. In regard to Buakura Farm Training College, the Board, when inspecting the college and seeing the pupils at work, was impressed with the necessity for additional teaching facilities, and Mr. La Trobe was asked to go into the question and report to the Board. His report, which was endorsed by the Board, is appended, and the Board trusts that its recommendations will be agreed to. Question (rf).—-Where each or any of such institutions should be situated in order to serve most efficiently the present requirements of the Dominion as a whole ? The Board, being of opinion that the time has not yet arrived for the establishment of one great School of Agriculture, decided not to express a definite opinion as to the particular locality in which it should be situated, beyond recommending that it should be placed in a central position in New Zealand. Mr. G. L. Marshall dissented from this view, and defines his opinion in an addendum to this report. As regards the location of Farm Training Colleges, the Board's recommendations are contained in the answer to question (a) (ii) above. Question (e). To what extend and under what conditions could the Canterbury Agricultural College be utilized (sub]'ect to the approval of the Board of Governors) as an integral part of the general scheme ? The Board expressed the opinion that in order to be of real value and to be capable of such expansion as to meet the needs of the Dominion, the vocational training must be rearranged so that the number of students completing their course each year should be at least doubled. This recommendation, while it referred mainly to Farm Training College students, assumed that degree students also would consume a much less proportion of their time at the college in actual farm-work than is the custom at present, and that accordingly more laboratory and class-room accommodation should be provided. The Board, having inspected Lincoln College, and taken note of the investigational work in progress especially in connection with plant-breeding (towards the cost of which the Department of Agriculture at present makes an annual grant of £500), is strongly of opinion that such work should be continued and expanded. The Board therefore recommends that an additional sum of £500 per annum be granted to Canterbury Agricultural College to enable it to continue and expand its plantbreeding and investigational work, and that a further sum be granted to provide a new laboratory and class-room for the accommodation of additional students.

2—H. 298.