PROFESSOR OF AGRICULTURE

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25086, 18 January 1947, Page 10

PROFESSOR OF AGRICULTURE

NEW ZEALANDER’S POST MR M. M. COOPER’S CAREER Although he has carried out much research into dairying and pig-rear-ing problems. Mr M. M. Cooper, B. Agr. Sc., B. Litt (Oxon), of Massey Agricultural College, who has been appointed to the Chair of Agriculture recently established by the University of London and tenable at Wye College. has agricultural education as his main interest. He has written a booklet on dairy farming for the Army Educational Welfare Service and was a joint author of the recentlypublished “Principles of Animal Production.” Besides being a uni-' versity examiner in dairy husbandry, he is a foundation member of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production, and a member of the Dairy Science Association and the Wellington District Pig Council. Wye College, for which Mr Cooper will leave New Zealand next winter, is somewhat similar to New Zealand's Msssey College,- where Mr Cooper graduated, in that research is carried out coincidental with the training of students for the management of farms and for university degrees leading to professional appointments in agriculture end horticulture. Wye College was founded in 1894 by the Sir Daniel Hall. K.C.8., one of the great figures of British agriculture, who in 1902 became the first director of Rothamstead Experimental Station. The college, which was closed during the last war, still uses some of the 500-year-old stone buildings completed in 1447. following e licence granted by Henry VI for the establishment of a College of Secular Priests. Since its reopening in October. 1945, the college has abandoned its diploma courses and, with a student roll of more than 100. is concentrating oh preparing candidates for agricultural and horticultural degrees. It is hoped eventually to accommodate about 200 students. Mr Cooper attended the Havelock North School and the Napier Boys’ High School, and became increasingly determined to follow a veterinary or agricultural career. With this end in view he completed his intermediate examination at Victoria University College in 1929. and spent four years at Massey College, where he graduated and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship in the first year in which the agricultural colleges were invited to forward nominations. While still at Oxford Mr Cooper was appointed to the staff of the New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, on behalf of which he made a three-months’ tour of the agricultural research stations of Britain before returning to New Zealand in 1937 for administrative work in animal research. After two years with the head office staff in Wellington he was, on the outbreak of war, seconded to the Department of Agriculture as secretary to the National Council of Primary Production, which post he vacated when appointed as lecturer in dairv husbandry at Massey College in February, 1940. Service Overseas Periods of college lecturing were Interspersed with territorial service until the end of 1942, when Mr Cooper, who had done much to promote Army education services in the Palmerston North district, was appointed by Major-Gen-eral Weir to be in charge of Army education for the 4th Division. He transferred to the 2nd N.Z.E F. in May of 1943, going overseas with the 10th Reinforcements as a lieutenant, and serving with the 22nd N.Z. Motor Battalion throughout the Italian campaign. reaching the rank of major. He was asked by Divisional Headquarters in September, 1944, to establish in Austria a camp for the training of candidates for the Kiwi Rugby team. As a result he later left for Britain with 25 men selected for the final ♦rials, and returned to Italy when the Kiwi team commenced their British tour. He reached New Zealand again in February. 1946, and alrqost immediately took up the position of head of the dairy husbandry department of Massey College. , Mr Cooper was the first Mew Zealander to captain the'Oxford Rugby team against Cambridge. He was captain also against the 1935 All Blacks, and represented Scotland against Wales and Ireland. He was selected to play against England, but an injury kept him off the field. Earlier football prominence included membership of the Manawatu representative . + eam for three years, and. after his return to New Zealand, captaincy of the Wellington representative side in 1939, and the gaining of his New Zealand University Rugby Blue.