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occupied in that industry. The pasteurization of milk will have a most important bearing on the future of this industry. It will assure the provision of a better quality of our dairy exports, and further, in view of the latest scientific knowledge, this pasteurization assures the maintenance of the health of the farm animal, and very materially with that the health of the human consumer of meat and milk. In this there is one of the principal means that will ultimately provide control of the white plague, tuberculosis. The Government is taking into consideration the question of turning into profitable account the wasts products from our butter and cheese factories. The result of this will be an increased revenue to the dairy-farmers of the Dominion. The dairy industry occupies a large share of the work on the experimental farms; in fact, there was at one of these farms the initiation of milk-recording and herd-testing, and from these there have developed the associations already referred to. These farms make special experiments in forage crops especially suitable for milking-cattle, and every effort is being made to encourage the cultivation of that great plant for the dairy-fanner, lucerne. As agricultural education is one of the most important subjects affecting the country, at one of the farms (in Waikato) a number of youths and young men are established there for training in agricultural practice. At Waerenga, in the Auckland District, on land that was at one time considered useless but which by experiment was found suitable for fruit-growing, a series of small farms, each of about 25 acres in extent, have been prepared, cultivated, and planted in fruit-trees. These farms were lately offered for selection. They are ail taken up. The aggregate value of these farms is estimated at about £6,000, and they have been provided for from ordinary revenue. A community such as will ultimately be established at Waerenga would assist very materially in bringing about an organized export of fruit, and it is to this export that the fruit industry must seek its success. This Department has also undertaken very extensive work in the testing of certain in different parts of the Dominion —for instance, the pumice lands of the extensive Taupo plateau, the gum lands of the northern peninsula, the intractable lands on the west coast of the South Island; and it is making a series of experiments with the object of regrassing depleted pastoral lands of the central regions in the South Island. Associated with this work is the allimportant soil-survey of the Dominion. The Chief Agricultural Chemist and a surveyor are undertaking a soil-survey of the forest lands of Otago and Southland with a view of enabling the fanner to treat a,nd cultivate those lands on scientific lines. Surveys are in progress applying to a million acres in the North Island, where an affection of stock militates against successful occupation of the land. The experimental farm is in demand throughout New Zealand, and it will be gratifying to inform you that such an institution will be established in the South Island. This farm will be particularly useful as applying to conditions of climate and of soil that have so far rendered the work of those in the North Island hardly applicable in the South. With this will be associated plantbreeding at three different stations, and plant-breeding is probably one of the most useful of the undertakings on the modern experimental farm. In Sweden with cereals, in Germany and in America' with beet for sugar-making, the increase in the value of the crop by selection in breeding has been phenomenal. The Department in many of its undertakings and on the experimental farms has but experienced what has been so universally felt in all other parts of the world where similar undertakings exist. There is first the period of a criticism, next of some appreciation, and finally that of both appreciation and confidence. These farms, in addition to their great value to the agricultural community, have, I am glad to say, shown a profit on the operations for the year. WATEK-POWEIi. Important progress has been made in the direction of giving effect to the decision of Parliament to bring into profitable use the latent power in our rivers and streams by the development of electrical energy on a large scale. The Government has secured the services of Mr. Evan Parry, a professional gentleman of high standing,

iii -B. 6.