DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22252, 3 May 1934, Page 7

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

DIRECTORSHIP OF FIELDS DIVISION MR R. B. TENNENT APPOINTED Mr R. B! Tennent, fields superintend* ent of the Department of Agriculture in Otago and Southland, has been appointed director of the fields division, in succession to Mr J. W. Deem, who recently retired on superannuation. Mr Tennent has been a familiar figure in the development of scientific farming in Otago for 14 years, for the greater part of which time he hag been In charge of the work of the fields division in this province. The new director is a native of Bathgate, Scotland, and received his early agricultural training in Queensland. He spent 13 year« in the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture as an instructor,

ami later as manager of the Warren State Experimental Farm. After serving as a commissioned officer in the Australian Imperial Forces in France he continued his studies in Scotland at the Kilmarnock Dairy School and the Glasgow Public Health Laboratory, where he secured the national diploma of dairying. He came to Dunedin in 1020 to fill the position of instructor in agriculture to the Otago Education Board, and was subsequently appointed instructor for Otago in the fields division, and when the fields division was reorganised he became fields superintendent for Otago and Southland, with full control of the division’s experimental and instructional activities in both provinces. Mr Tennent possesses a wide knowledge of farming methods practised in many countries, which should prove of great assistance to him in his new position. In 1925 he was sent by the New Zealand Government to study irrigation methods in the United States, and irrigation farming in New Zealand has been largely based on the observations which be made in California. His special knowledge in this sphere led to his appointment as a member of the Government Irrigation Committee of 1928, which classified irrigation settlements in Central Otago and adjusted water rentals and charges throughout the whole district. He was recently appointed a member of the Taieri River Trust, and his other activities have included membership of the executives of the Otago Provincial Council of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union and the Otago Agricultural and Pastoral Society.