Experimental Dairy Farm.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXV, Issue 9791, 17 March 1908, Page 4

Experimental Dairy Farm.

(Pkb Pkess Association.) Wellington, March 16. The Premier passed through Palmerstoii hv the express train to-day. At the station he was met by a large number of representatives of local organisations and residents, who expressed gratification at Palmerston being selected as the site of the dairy school. The Premier said the Cabinet "in arriving at a decision eliminated all offers of land and money and sought to confer in the question of a site the greatest brnelit upon the dairying community as a whole. Men of c.vpeii. once all 'the world over had selected towns as sites for dairy schools, and he thought. Palmerston 'North especially favorable for an assemblage of the dairying community apart altogether from the students at the school. With the settlement of the dairy school site question the Government will now be able to proceed with the development of a scheme which it has had under consideration for sonic time. The school will be in clnrge of Mr W. M. .Singleton (Acting Dairy Commissioner), who last year visited Canada and Great Britain in order to acquire the latest information in regard to such establishments. It is proposed to appoint a bacteriologist and chemist to the stall' of the school, wiiich will have a thoroughly equipped laboratory audi lecture room for students, this will mean the erection of fairly extensive buildings on the site, including a butter factory and a cheese factory. It is probable that a. commencement will be made with the erection of the factories this season and provision made for a course of lectures during the ensuing winter. The laboratory accommodation will m<i.-:t likely lie deferred until the bacteriologist and chemist have been appointed, and it is hoped to combine these two positions in one man. to whom will be left the erection of the laboratory plant. In regard to students, the idea is to train them for the positions of factory managers, whether butter or cheese, and to make: provision for their gaining something in the nature of a diploma after a certain course of instruction. It is hoped to establish a diploma that in time will come to be regarded as a condition precedent to securing the position of manager of a dairy factory first, the same as a diploma is now granted at a school of mines. The advantage of Selecting Palmerston North is that the necessary accommodation for students is available ire the township, close to the proposed dairy school, and this wilt obviate th;e necessity of erecting buildings for that purpose. The .buildings would ■have considerably exceeded the cost of the dairy school itself. This vexed question, remarked Sir Joseph Ward to a 'limes reporter, had engaged the. serious consideration of the Government for a very long time, and it had now come to the decision that Palmerston was the most suitable place, for such an institution. Palmerston North was n. recognised agricultural centre, where, there were great gatherings of farmers from ail over the. island at different times during the year, and it was a place which was easily accessible from the agricultural districts of the North Island. It- would be a most valuable, thing to have the school .in the locality of these groat gatherings, so that visiting farmers could see what was l>eing done there. That was the practice which they found was followed ■in other countries.