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for a period of six months. Professor Kolb's advice and constructive criticism have been of great value to the Bureau, and his wide experience in rural surveys has been particularly valuable in regard to our own survey of standards of living of dairy-farmers. A brief description of the Bureau's work during the year follows. The Unemployed. A small sub-committee was set up early last year to inquire into the question of the extent of unemployability among those who were unemployed, and with the co-operation of the Labour Department a trial survey was made in Christchurch for the purpose of working out a technique to deal with the problem of classification. A brief report of the results of this survey was forwarded to the Labour Department, which has since carried on the inquiry in a more extensive manner. Nutrition. During the year a grant was made available to a Nutrition Sub-committee, comprising Professor Malcolm, Dr. Elizabeth Gregory, and Dr. Elizabeth Gunn, for the purpose of promoting research into some nutrition problems in the Dominion. Miss E. Wilson, M.H.Sc., who had been engaged upon dietetic work in England, was appointed to a research position at the Home Science Department, University of Otago, 011 Ist January, 1938, and she has now completed the first section of her work dealing with minimum adequate low-cost dietaries. Diets have been prepared for both summer and winter for families of different age composition, with a view to securing adequate nutritional requirements at a minimum cost. In order that these diets could be shown to be really practicable, they have been tested by a few families who have co-operated with Miss Wilson. Miss Wilson's report has been prepared for publication in the New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology. The second section of the nutrition study will take the form of a survey of the actual dietaries of a group of industrial workers' families in the cities, this inquiry to follow the Bureau's survey of urban standards of living. Owing to the establishment of the Medical Research Council early this year (1938), the work of the Bureau's sub-committee and of Miss Wilson has now been taken over by that Council as part of its scheme to co-ordinate nutritional research in the Dominion. Contact is being kept with the work in its relation to the other activities of the Bureau. Survey op Standards of Living op Dairy-farmers. The chief research project which was undertaken during the year —an inquiry into standards of living of dairy-farmers in New Zealand —has produced results of a very satisfactory nature. The detailed results will be published in due course, and the following is a brief summary : — I. Introduction. The following outline is presented in order to give an indication of some of the results of the survey of standards of living of dairy-farmers conducted by the Bureau with assistance from the New Zealand Branch of the Institute of Pacific Relations. A wide range of data has been collected and analysed, but owing to limitation of space in the annual report of the Department, and owing to the fact that much of°the data is not yet analysed, it has been impossible to give a detailed treatment and interpretation of all the results, but it is intended to publish them in the near future. The data were collected between September, 1937 and February, 1938. The schedule used in this survey was first given a trial test with a group of approximately forty dairy-farmers and amended in accordance with this experience. The field workers were given a course of instruction both in the office and in the field, and were then sent out to their respective districts. Family budget forms were also supplied to the wives of the farmers interviewed, and data have been secured concerning the actual household expenditures of a large number of families. During the course of the inquiry a very satisfactory and helpful response was given by farmers' organizations and farmers themselves, and the Bureau is greatly indebted to those people who so generously assisted in this survey and who, by their unfailing courtesy and co-operation, made the study possible. In the selection of the farm, those where sheep or agricultural farming was a major source of farm income were excluded. It may therefore be assumed that the survey covers purely dairy-farms. A strict and unequivocal definition of a dairy-farm is, however, difficult to arrive at ; hence a fundamental difficulty is encountered in attempting to check the representative character of this sample as compared with others. The present sapiple compares very closely in respect of (a) total size of farm, (b) area devoted to dairying, (c) size of herd, (d) total butterfat, with that taken in a recent investigation by the Department of Agriculture. When allowance is made for the inevitable inclusion of many mixed farms and small farming units in the larger sample of approximately twenty thousand dairy-farms surveyed last year by the Government Statistician, the fit is also remarkably close in those data which are common to the two surveys. In this report none of the data collected in regard to the farm, its area, stock, and production have been given, the stress being laid rather on the farmer, family living, and family life and activity. The results below relate only to the North Island farms covered, the analysis of the Southland figures being not yet completed. IT. The Areas surveyed. (a) North Auckland : — (i) Kaitaia—the area adjacent to Kaitaia and stretching four miles north and south and ten miles east. (ii) Dargaville —a circular area round Dargaville with a radius of about five miles, and a further area stretching approximately sixteen miles down the east side of the Hobson Peninsula.

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