DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3882, 7 August 1928, Page 13

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

OTAGO-SOUTHLAND DISTRICT FORMED.

The policy of the Department of Agriculture has recently undergone drastic changes, particularly in respect to the constitution and work of its instructional staffs. The Dominion has been divided into four districts for the more efficient carrying on of instructional and experimental work. The four divisions are Auckland, Wellington, Canterbury, and Otago-Southland, each of which will be in the charge of a superintendent of instruction.

The officer in charge of the new OtagoSouthland area is Mr R. B. Tennent, N.D.D., who, up to the present, has been chief instructor in agriculture at Dunedin. He will take the position of superintendent of the Fields Division in this district, with headquarters at Dunedin. Whereas in the .past he has been responsible for the experimental work throughout the province of Otago, he will take charge of the whole of the southern portion of the South Island, with subordinate officers in various centres. The instructional work of the department will still be directed from Dunedin, but instructors are to be stationed in their own districts. Dunedin will have an instructor

who will attend to that area of country extending from the Waipahi River in the south to Palmerston in the north. Oamaru and Alexandra will be the headquarters of the North Otago and Central Otago officers respectively, and both Gore and Invercargill will have a resident instructor also.

Mr D. M'Gillivray, who has been instructor at Invercargill for the past few years, will leave to take up another position with the department in Canterbury to-night, and Mr Tennent will leave for Invercargill to-morrow morning to make arrangements for the institution of the new regime. Mr Tennent is no stranger to the Southland district as he was stationed there prior to his coming to Dunedin. The appointments to the various districts have not yet been completed, but it is practically certain that the three Otago proper centres will be manned by officers who have been connected with the Fields Division in Dunedin for the past few years. A man has set to be found for Invercargill. The changes are the outcome of a greatly increased demand for the services of qualified instructors and experimental work carried on on farm lands or i«i their neighbourhood rather than on isolated experimental farms. Rumours of departmental changes have been numerous or late, and not a few of those who have benefited by Mr Tennent’s energy and ability have expressed the fear that he might be transferred to some other district. ihe farming 'community as a whole will be glad to know that his headquarters will still be Dunedin.