A TRIBUTE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 150, 17 February 1932, Page 7

A TRIBUTE

WORK OF LORD BLEDISLOE IN PROMOTING N.Z. AGRICULTURE. ENGLISH JOURNAL'S VIEWS. A leading article in "Science and Agriculture in New Zealand," with an enthusiastic tribute to the work of Lord Bledisloe, appears in "Nature," the well known British journal of science. It says. — • "Since Lord Bledisloe's appointment ; as Governor-General of New Zealand, : he has taken every opportunity of emphasising the need for scientific work as the basis of development of the country's resources. He has the unusual advantage of comhining administrative ability with agricultural knowledge and a high appreciation of the possibilities presented by scientific research, and he has the courage to express his convictions clearly and without ambiguity. Before leaving Great Britain he had, as chairman of the Lawes Agricultural Trust, the committee which manages the Rothamsted Experimental Station, the opportunity of familiarising himself with the detailed working of a great agricultural experiment station, and as chairman of the Long Ashton Researeh Station Committee he had had similar experience of a fruit research station. He was therefore well equipped for his work. He has,. of course, been fortunate in his field of action. In no part of the Empire is there a higher standard of intelligence and ability among agriculturists, pastoralists and fruitgrowers than in New Zealand. Right from the outset, universities were founded and agricultural education fostered. Nowhere is a worker in agricultural science better received than in New Zealand." Value of Science. Th'e article gives (Jetails of the growth of New Zealand's agricultural

industries, and refers to the develop, ment of the dairy industry as a triumph for the bacteriologist, who has reduced to an exact science the art of producing clean milk, good butter, and cheese true to type. Than this no better illustration of the advantage of science to a community could be desired. "But," proceeds the article, "New Zealand does not rest satisfied with past achievements; it is perpetually improving its scientific equipment. The Cawthron Research Institute, founded hy Thomas Cawthron, a Camberwell man; the Canterhury Agricultural College, also in the South Island; and the Massey Agricultural College, in the North Island, are all vigorous institutions, the first two well established and already held in high esteem among the agricultural institutes of the world, the last-nam-ed new, well equipped and with possibilities of a great career of usefulness. On the opening of this institution, Lord Bledisloe gave an address ' in which he summarised in a masterly way the economic and techhical problems facing the New Zealand farmer, indicating also the lines on which they could he solved. Even the most impoverished countries of the world,' he said, 'have found public expenditure upon scientific research and the scientific guidance of their farming population to he a sound and remunerative investment'."