Lincoln student 61 years ago

Press, 6 May 1978, Page 2

Lincoln student 61 years ago

A former Director-General of Agriculture. Mr P. W. Smallfield, who attended Lincoln College 61 years ago, is among former students attending the college’s centennial celebrations.

The practical training that students received then was ideal for the sort of work that he had to do when he began work in 1921 as an instructor in agriculture with the old Department of Agriculture at Auckland, Mr Smallfield recalls.

Men had then just started farmieg after World War I and Ranted to know the basics of fanning. Mr SmallfieTd said he used to carry bottles of superphosphate, basic slag, and lime about with him because many men had not seen such things.

Mr Smallfield started at Lincoln in 1917. He was there briefly in 1918 before he went off to World War 1 but his troopship had reached only Freetown, Sierra Leone, when the Armistice was signed and he was back again at the col-

lege in 1920 to complete a bachelor of agriculture degree. Another student at the college in 1920 was Mr L. W. McCaskill, of Christchurch, who is also attending the celebrations. His association with the college as a student and staff member also goes back about 60 years; and Mr Smallfield remembers that one of the most valuable parts of his Lincoln experience was the walk that he and Mr McCaskill took round the college property every Sunday. Mr R. A. McCarlie, who is now supervisor of land use and resources for the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority in Vancouver, attributes his love of the environment and interest in ecology to having listened to Mr McCaskill when he attended a soil-conservation course during his three years at Lincoln from 1947

to 1949. He is revisiting Christchurch for the first time since leaving Lincoln. A holder of a diploma of agriculture from Lincoln and also a graduate of the University of Manitoba, Mr McCarlie returned to Canada after spending two years in Manitoba on a Canadian Department of Agriculture exchange when he worked with the Ministry of Works in New Zealand after leaving Lincoln. Mr V. E. Vial, a man with a soft Irish brogue, but who was bom in Invercargill, has come to the centennial celebrations from Dublin. Mr Vial completed both bachelor and master of agricultural degrees at Lincoln between 1948 and 1952. Because he did not expect to find employment in New Zealand after graduating, Mr Vial went to a job on a land-use survey in Honduras and subsequently worked there as an experimental

officer doing field experiments of an agricultural nature. He then worked for three years at Newcastle Upon Tyne in England, on the genetics of Friesian cattle before joining the semi-Govemment Agricultural Institute of Ireland. For 13 years he was head of its department of animal breeding. Now Mr Vial is programme co-ordinator at the headquarters of the institute with particular reference to livestock, and as he is also involved in aid projects in Libya, Sierra Leone, Lesotho, and the Sudan, he says that he lives out of a suitcase. The centennial celebrations have also brought back to the college two of its former Malaysian students. Mr K. F. G. Liew, who was at Lincoln from 1963 to 1968 and took both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in agricultural science, is now in charge of the agricultural

information division of the Department of Agriculture in Sabah. He is accompanied by Mr N. P. Liew (no relation) who took a bachelor of agricultural science degree during his time at Lincoln from 1962 to 1965 and is now a senior agricultural officer in the extension service of the Department of Agriculture in Sabah. According to Mr P. W. Cosgriff, who is joint secretary of the Old Students’ Association with Mr T. E. Ludecke, in broad terms it is expected that about 1400 former students will be attending the celebrations. Apart from a contingent from Australia, two will come from the United Kingdom, two from Canada, two from Africa, one from the United States, and one from the Falkland Islands.

Some 1600 people attended the opening function of the celebrations, which was for staff and old students.