APPOINTMENT OF DIRECTOR, FIELDS DIVISION.

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume 49, Issue 3, 20 September 1934, Page 188

APPOINTMENT OF DIRECTOR, FIELDS DIVISION.

Consequent upon the retirement of Mr. J. W. Deem, Mr. R. B. Tennent, N.D.D., has been appointed Director of the Fields Division of the Department of Agriculture. Mr. Tennent had some experience in farming practice in Scotland before proceeding to Queensland, where he was a student in the Queensland Agricultural College for two and a half years and subsequently Manager of the Warren State Experimental Farm, Central Queensland, until his departure for active service. After the war Mr. Tennent gained the National Diploma in Dairying as a result of his studies at the West of Scotland Agricultural College, and then returned to Queensland before coming to New Zealand, Mr. Tennent for a period held the position of Instructor in Agriculture to the Otago Education Board, which he left in 1920 to accept an appointment as Instructor in Agriculture in the Department of Agriculture. In this position his duties embraced work in Otago and Southland. One of the major tasks that he was .called upon to deal with related to the problems arising in respect to the extensive irrigation ventures in Central Otago; and in connection with this task, in 1923, on behalf of the Department of Agriculture, he investigated irrigation schemes in Australia, and again in 1925 he visited the United States of America, with . an engineer of the Public Works Department, to study the bearing of irrigation in that country upon the irrigation projects in New Zealand. In 1933 he was appointed the Government representative upon the Taieri River Trust. In 1928 he was appointed. Fields Superintendent of the Department of Agriculture - at Dunedin with supervision of the wide range of activities of the Fields Division in Otago and Southland. This position he occupied until his recent appointment as Director of the Fields Division.

Dairy Production in 1933—34. The following information relative to the estimated dairy production in. New Zealand in 1933-34 has been compiled by the Farm Economics Section, Department of Agriculture numbers in parentheses indicate the corresponding returns for the 1932-33 season : Total dairy cows in milk and dry, 1,932,511 (1,845,972); total dairy cows in milk only, 1,816,402 (1,723,913) ; total production in butterfat, 426,699,242 lb. (397,068,707 lb.) ; average annual production for all cows in milk and dry, 220-80 lb. (215-10 lb.) ; average . annual production for cows in milk only, 234-91 lb. (230-33 lb.). The estimated average production per cow in 1933 is the highest yet recorded.