DAIRY LABORATORY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 24 March 1925, Page 4

DAIRY LABORATORY.

WA LACELVTLLK SITE

ADVANTAGES CLAIMED

Wallaceville, in the Hutt Valley, is considered by the Minister of Agriculture and his officers as a very suitable site for the dairy laboratory and experimental factory which it has been decided to establish there. At the Government farm there is a sufficient area of good pasture to keep the cows required to" supply the amount of milk necessary. The nearness to Wellington will be *of special advantage, seeing that not only could the head of the division be always in close touch with the work being carried on, but the best scientists in the department, whose headquarters are mostly in Wellington, will al so. he available for consultation when necessary. Moreover, says the Minister, this central position would enable the laboratory to be best placed for meeting the requirements of both North and South Islands.

THE LOCAL SCHEME

STILL UNDER CONSIDERATION

Although the decision of the Minister has been made, the advocates of the laboratory in South Taranaki, for which strong efforts have been made by the Factories’ Federation for some months, have not dropped their scheme; but they, can do nothing until they have a definite reply from the Minister to a letter sent to him some days ago. They consider that, by having in South Taranaki an institution, although on a less pretentious basis than the main laboratory at Wallaceville, problems that arise very frequently in the course of the daily work of the factory could he investigated at once, and that much advantage could he secured by this means. Apparently great factor in the decision to.make Wallaceville the central laboratory has been that the scientists could be in close touch with other branches of the Agricultural Department, such as the Fields Division and those already dealing with soils and manures, and also the Analytical Division.

Officers of the Federation, however, still hope that something may be done to heln the scheme as suggested by them for the needs of South Taranaki, the most closely settled of the dairy districts of the Dominion.