VARIED EXPERIENCE OF NEW LINCOLN LECTURER

Press, Volume C, Issue 29501, 1 May 1961, Page 22

VARIED EXPERIENCE OF NEW LINCOLN LECTURER

Mr A. T. G. McArthur, who for the last five years has been technical officer to the Dairy Board, has arrived at Canterbury Agricultural College, Lincoln, to take up the position of senior lecturer in rural education, vacated early this year by Mr L. W. McCaskill, who is now director of the Tussock Grasslands and Mountain Lands Institute. An Englishman who has spent most of the last 12 years in New Zealand. Mr McArthur comes to Lincoln with a background of research in animal nutrition and breeding and experience in business administration and agricultural extension work. Mr McArthur wak educated at Lancing College, Sussex, and Wye College (a college of London University), tn Kent, where, in 1948, he gained the degree of bachelor of science in agriculture Under a scholarship from the British Ministry of Agriculture he then spert a year at Massey Agricultural College to complete his masterate in agricultural science. Subsequently, he spent three years at the Ruakura Animal Research Station. At first he worked on identical twins under Dr, John Hancock, chief animal geneticist, who is now In South America with the Food and Agriculture Organisation. Later Mr McArthur engaged in studies of his own on calf rearing.

Artificial Breeding In 1953 Mr McArthur returned to England and worked for a year for the Milk Marketing Board as an advisory geneticist With Dr. Alan Robertson, of Edinburgh University, Mr McArthur devised a system along the lines of that used in New Zealand to evaluate the effect of artificiallybred daughters in herds. It was based on a comparison of artificially-bred and naturally-bred daughters in the same herd. Previously, when figures for milk and butterfat production were used, different levels of feeding on farms tended to mask the results.

Returning to New Zealand. Mr McArthur spent the next two years In a family business in Christchurch. In 1956 he was appointed to the staff of the Dairy Board. As technical officer, Mr McArthur has been closelv associated with the bond's 12 consulting officers. He has helped to train new officers and to nrovide those in the field with technical information, acting as a liaison officer between research institutions and the officers. He has been Intensely interested in the formation of discussion groups of six to 10 farmers which meet to attempt to find solutions to problems on the farms. Tn his anproach to agricultural extension Mr McArthur does not hold the view that it is a purely teaching function of' transferring information from the research station to the farm He believes extension material must be drawn from every possible source, including the farm, research station, and accountant. With information from all these sources the extension officer has to be able to decide what best can be done to achieve maximum living standards.