A Strong Case For Veterinary School

Press, Volume C, Issue 29536, 10 June 1961, Page 7

A Strong Case For Veterinary School

T7ROM this week's repre- ■*• sentations to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr Hayman) in support of the siting of the proposed veterinary school at Lincoln, Canterbury emerged a very strong contender for the school. If the Minister accepts the recommendation of the special committee of the Senate of the University of New Zealand that this school should be associated with an agricultural college, then there are only two sites in it, but there has been some support from inside the country, and also from eminent visitors to this country, for an association with a medical school. The discussions this week at Lincoln could not have left anyone in doubt where a New Zealand veterinary school should be. Veterinarians in this country work in the main with the sheep and cattle of New Zealand’s farming industry, and that position is likely to long remain so. Men who are being trained largely to service the farming industry should then be surely in a farming atmosphere in close association with workers in the allied field of animal husbandry and also with the fields of plant and soil science, the Inter-relationship of which is being increasingly appreciated these days. Assuming that the school must inevitably be associated with an agricultural college, then Lincoln has the advantage of being from next year a constituent college of the multi-faculty University of Canterbury, whereas Massey Agricultural College will be associated with the new

branch university of Victoria University at Palmerston North. And on top of this Canterbury has the widest range of breeds of livestock and the widest range of climate of any part of the country