CHAIR OF AGRICULTURE

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 220, 11 June 1924, Page 9

CHAIR OF AGRICULTURE

PROFESSOR G. S. PEREN ARRIVES Professor G. S- Peren, who is to occupy the recently-created chair of agriculture at Victoria College, arrived, with Mrs. Peren, from England by the R.M.S. Athenic yesterday. A heartv welcome to New Zealand was extended at the Wharf by Professor Bovd Wilson, chairman of the Professorial Board of Victoria Col.ege, who was accompanied by several of his colleagues. Mr. A. H. Cockayne, Director of the Fields Division of the Government Agricultural Department, also voiced a welcome on behalf of the Department. Professor Peren is a graduate or Ontario Agricultural College, University of Toronto, and. has had a lifelong experience of agriculture, both m theory and practice. For .some years he was attached to the British Ministry of Agriculture, and immediately prior to leaving England was a professor at Bristol University. Interviewed on his arrival, Professor Peren stated that agricultural education was steadily being developed in England. Like most countries, Great Britain was undergoing a process of readiustment after the war, and was reverting to pre-war conditions. A coed deal of the land which had been broken up for corn during the war was being reseeded to grass. Owing to the heavy taxation, and. the demand for land, many of the big English landowners had cut up their estates. These had been first offered to the tenants, who were. faced with, the choice of either buying or getting out. When the slump had occurred, those who had purchased land at high prices wore left to “carry the babv.” The difference i’l the rate of exchange was at present very much against farmers in Great Britain. Foot-and-mouth disease had caused severe loss amongst cattle, particularly in Cheshire, but this was now being got under. Professor Peren, who served during the war with the English artillery in France, stated that bo was looking forward with keen interest to taking up his w-rlc hose-