Impressed with seed quality

Press, 15 January 1982, Page 7

Impressed with seed quality

Darfield residents could be excused for thinking the new arrival in town, Mr Milne Webster, had only recently emigrated from Scotland.

Mr Webster, who will operate the Darfield Seed Cleaning Co., plant in Horndon St. has retained a broad Scottish accent after 29 years in this country.

For Mr Webster New Zealand is home, and he does not pine to return to his birthplace.

"It is too good here." he says.

Mr Webster has managed a farm at Lowcliffe in Mid Canterbury for the last 20 years. The recent sale of that property left him available to seek a new job, and he was keen to take on the challenge offered in running

the new seed cleaning company at Darfield. The Webster family now live in Darfield where two daughters will attend the local high school in the coming year. Mrs Lorraine Webster will help her husband in the running of the business and it is expected that more labour will be required as the business grows.

Mr Webster is very enthusiastic about farming prospects in the Darfield area.

"The land around here has a great potential. It is very good land. With the increase of irrigation it can only become better,” he says.

Mr Webster has been working the portable grain cleaning machine around some Darfield properties,

and says he is “very impressed" with the quality of seed he has been working with. A local man, Mr Brent Smith, has been employed to help in this work. Twenty. years working with a mixed cropping farm has given Mr Webster a background in common with the people he will be dealing with through the seed cleaning business. This experience has also included the build-up of his knowledge of seeds, as he has worked with portable dressers for many years. Mr Webster agrees with the company owner, Mr V. Ellis, that the provision of an

independent seed cleaning business gives farmers a wider scope for marketing their product. Unlike the large mercantile firms they do not deal in the finished product.

Mr Webster says the Darfield plant will supply seed boxes, and farmers can bring in their product in bulk. On entering the store it is carefully labelled and catalogued, then processed.