Section Gii. 



AGRICULTURE. 



ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT, 

 H. W. rOTTS, P. C.S., E.L.S., 



Pri)icijml. ITairke.sh/tn/ A(/riciiI///r(fl CoIle(/c. Riclnnotnl. N.S.W. 



THE AGRARIAN INDUSTRIES: THEIR DEVELOPMENT AND 

 PRESENT CONDITION WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO 

 THE OUTLOOK FOR THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUS- 

 TRALIA. 



John Naismith, a noted agriculturist, in the latter part of the 

 eighteenth centuiy, wrote: — •Agriculture has been regarded by the 

 wisest men of all ages as the most important employment of man- 

 kind, and the firmest support of a State; and, being of the most 

 laborious kind, and attended with uncommon hazard and difficulty, 

 seems not only to merit, but demand, eveiy possible degree of public 

 patronage." 



Quaint as may be the mode of expression, the main principle is 

 as urgent to-day. Indeed, more so, seeing applied science has relieved 

 many phases of the laborious aspect of agriculture and its allied indus- 

 tries. 



Without assenting to the doctrines of such an extremist in social 

 economics as the late author of '" Progress and Poverty," we may 

 admit that thei'e is much force in his assertion, w^hen in answer to the 

 hackneyed objection " we cannot all be farmers," he emphatically 

 rejoins: "Why, that is just what we all could be." Why indigence 

 and material advance seem to be so inseparable, and why, with an 

 enormously increased production, so small a share falls to the lot of 

 vast numbers of toiling bread-winners, is not the subject I now pro- 

 pose to deal with, but in the opinion of many it is intimately con- 

 nected therewith. There is a steadily growing conviction in many 

 minds that systems of government and of land tenure which drive 

 population off the land in old countries, and fail to settle them on it 

 in new, are largely responsible for such an unequal condition of 

 things. While in many places dii-e need is rampant, we nevertheless 

 hear of ■' over-production." In reality this is frequently only another 

 term fur imperfect and ill-regulated distribution. When we see no 

 deserving person unemployed; when man, woman, and child are well 

 fed, comfortablv housed, and decently clad, then it will be time 



