6

H.—29

During my recent visit to the United Kingdom I was able to observe the work done by the Department's inspecting officers there. It is quite satisfactory, and of undoubted benefit to the industry. Herd-testing has made marked progress, and the subsidy granted by Cabinet will be of valuable assistance in furthering this movement. The fact of much of the testing being in the hands of independent organizations renders it necessary for those controlling them to use every care to continue to employ reliable men to carry out the work and thus ensure efficiency generally. The upward tendency of the average dairy-cow yield is gratifying, and, while the instructional services of the Department can justly claim some credit for this, the herd-testing movement —originally started by the Department —has certainly been an important factor. Farm dairy instruction has not made the progress one would like to see. This service is a most useful one, which can be credited with having been a marked factor in bringing about improvement in the quality of milk and cream sent to factories. It is hoped that the industry will co-operate with the Department in bringing about an extension of it. For the purposes of the general current work of the Division a dairy bacteriologist has been appointed to work at the Wallaceville Laboratory, thus freeing the regular staff there of dairy work and facilitating the handling of the rapidly increasing volume of investigation which is being conducted. Provision has also been made for chemical assistance. In co-operation with the Massey College Council, the Dairy Board, and the Research Department, steps were taken early in the year to establish a laboratory and an experimental dairy factory on the college farm. A committee, on which were representatives of all four bodies, was set up to generally direct the work of these places. A chemist and a bacteriologist, both highly trained men, have been engaged 011 the Committee's recommendation, while the factory will be under the direction of one of the senior Instructors of this Department. In view of this development, the erection of the Department's own laboratory and experimental factory at Wallaceville was not gone on with, accommodation being provided in the existing laboratory there for dealing with the Dairy Division's routine work. Every endeavour will be made to ensure that the whole of these arrangements work out satisfactorily. Chops and Pastures. The report of |the Fields Division goes fully into the work done in connection with field crops and pastures. Investigations into troublesome diseases of cereals and roots are being actively prosecuted, field trials in some cases being carried out in association with the laboratory work. The work initiated in Canterbury in connection with the certification of seed wheat and seed potatoes should prove of value to growers, and it it is a matter for satisfaction that they are cordially co-operating in it. The selection and breeding of improved strains of seed wheat at Lincoln College, in association with the Department, is making good progress, and an interesting development in connection with the wheat-growing industry has been the setting-up of a Wheat Research Committee to aid the Research Department in conducting research into wheatgrowing and the manufacture of flour and bread. This is financed by means of levies upon wheat and flour. This Department, while naturally greatly interested in the research work to be done, is only associated with it by having a representative on the Committee, and when the scheme is in full operation it will be the desire of the Department to do all it can to assist in making it a success in practice. As regards pastures, a large volume of work has been done, much of it in connection with the regrassing of second-class country in parts of the North Island. This is fully gone into in the divisional report. The practice of fertilizer top-dressing continues to extend, having received a marked impetus from the reduced price of fertilizers which ruled for a considerable period, also from the reduced rates of railway carriage brought about by an arrangement with the Railway Department under which the Department of Agricidture was charged with a large share of the cost involved by the reduction. For the financial year this share amounted to £81,538. The instruction service of the Division is still expanding in order to meet the continued and increasing desire of farmers for direct advice on the farm itself. This, combined with lectures, demonstrations, and the planning and supervision of experimental plots keeps the Instructors and their assistants fully employed. The larger experimental areas conducted by the Fields Division have been employed principally for the purposes of field experiments in association with laboratory investigations,