Farm Advisory Officer Retires

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30296, 23 November 1963, Page 17

Farm Advisory Officer Retires

At the end of this year, Mr J. H. Claridge, chief advisory officer, (agronomy), Department of Agriculture, Wellington, will retire. Mr Claridge, who joined the department in Christchurch in May, 19?6, has been closely connected with seed certification work and setting up the Potato Board. When he was first appointed, under Mr J. W. Hadfield, who was then the senior instructor in agriculture, Mr Claridge was primarily engaged on a certification scheme for potatoes and wheat. In 1929, both he and Mr Hadfield were transferred to Palmerston North where they

expanded the seed certification scheme to incorporate not only crop seeds but also pasture seeds. In 1935 Mr Claridge was transferred to the department’s head office in Wellington where he was in charge of seed certification. During this period he introduced the scheme, which the department still operates, of multiplying seeds of improved strains of major ■ species and varieties of farm seeds and distributing them through mercantile firms to selected growers. Mr Claridge has been, and still is, the department’s head office specialist officer dealing with aU matters relating to seeds and crops. The seed testing station at Palmerston North was

| brought under his control in 1947 for the purposes of reI organisation of the services being supplied today. He was appointed secretary of the Potato Advisory Committee, which was established under war-time conditions in 1942 and in that capacity had considerable association with the setting up of the Potato Board in 1950. He has been the Government representative, on this board since its inception. Mr Claridge has also been a member of the Barley Advisory Committee for a number of years, secretary and chairman of the Small Seeds Advisory Committee and chairman of the Seed Potato Certification Advisory Committee. In the course of his work, Mr Claridge has maintained a close liaison with the agriculture section of Federated Farmers and has attended meetings of the council regularly for more than 10 years.

He was educated at Christchurch Technical College, Canterbury University College and Lincoln College and attained his bachelor of agriculture degree.