THE DAIRY SCHOOL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 390, 17 March 1908, Page 2

THE DAIRY SCHOOL.

To be Established at Palmerston* Cabinet on Saturday selected Palmerston North as the site for the Dairy School. After a full and careful investigation of the various sites offered, the Government, said the Premier, had come to the decision that Palmerston North was the most suitable place. The school will also combine an experimental station, and this will be one of its most useful functions.

There has been quite a flutter of excitement over this search for a site. Numerous districts have urged their claims upon the Minister of Agriculture, and finally a ballot was taken by the Ministry upon the following : —Stratford, Hawera, Marton, Levin, Palmerston North, Feilding, Woodville, Hastings, and Hamilton. Feilding’s claim was backed up by an offer of a 50-acre site from Mr Lethbridge, and by its prospects of a great future. It asked also for a college of agriculture. Levin relied on its experiment farm, and its State dairy herd, which, it contended, were indispensible to the dairy school. Marton urged its central position. A syndicate which had cut up large estates into dairy-farm sizes, offered a 10-acre site. Hawera and Stratford offered no sites, but relied on the obvious advantages of their districts over all others. - Woodville (like Hawera) voiced its claims through its Chamber of Commerce. Hastings, as early as 1906, pointed out, through the Chairman of the Heretaunga Co-operative Dairy Company, its tremendous progress. The school will be erected on a portion of the Manawatu A. and P. Showground. The building will be an important addition to the already imposing edifices on that extensive area. The endowment is a Borough Reserve of 45 acres 1 rood 14 perches, lying on the southern outskirts of the borough, and skirted on one side by the Manawatu River. It is better known as the old racecourse reserve.

Mr Singleton, will have charge of the school, and directly the staff has been got together, a start will be made, with the permission of the A. and P. Association, in the existing buildings. The buildings to be erected will be placed in hand as early as possible. There is already at the credit of the school a fund of which is available for immediate use.

Palmerston is to be congratulated upon being chosen as the site for the school, and naturally the townspeople and district settlers are jubilant.