QUALITY OF STOCK

Taranaki Daily News, 13 November 1934, Page 12

QUALITY OF STOCK

PRAISE AND CRITICISM. GOVERNOR-GENERAL’S VIEWS. Christchurch, Nov. 9. While in New Zealand the GovernorGeneral, Lord Bledisloe, has not missed an opportunity to emphasise to farmers the great necessity for an improvement in the types of cattle and pigs bred in the Dominion. His Excellency made the same point when speaking at the luncheon at the Metropolitan Show to-day. At the same time Lord Bledisloe had warm praise for the high quality of the sheep exhibited. “I warmly congratulate you on your show, on its excellent organisation and its educative value,” said His Excellency. “There is probably no better display of the different breeds of sheep in any one place in the world than this show-ground affords. You have, .moreover, good reason to be proud in the South Island of your Clydesdale horses, your cobs and ponies and the youthful riders who bestride them. But forgive me if I tell you candidly that there is room for much improvement in all your breeds of cattle, particularly those providing the raw material foy prime cheese and prime beef and in all your breeds of pigs. “It is not that you have not got good specimens of both, but the gap between your best and your average quality is considerable, and it is the average, as kept by the ordinary commercial farmers of any country, which will make or may the welfare of its pastoral population in these days of hectic competition.” Lord Bledisloe warmly commended the research workers of the Dominion and emphasised that the results they had achieved were of enormous value to those on the land. “They deserve all the sympathy and financial support which Parliament and the general community can afford them,” he said. “They no doubt need to be co-ordinated and systematised, but nowhere within the Empire is more valuable scientific research being conducted than at the Cawthron Institute, Lincoln College, Massey College and at Wallaceville, and there is certainly no country which stands more to benefit from it than this.” His Excellency said that illustrations of the .fine work being done in research were to be found in the efforts to eliminate hair from the fleece of Romney sheep in New Zealand and to improve the local wheats. From the point of view of the miller and baker in the latter respect the work of Dr. F. W. Hilgendorf and his associates was outstanding in the Empire and comparable with the best work being done at Home.