UNRRA Appointment

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume 71, Issue 2, 15 August 1945, Page 179

UNRRA Appointment

DR. C. S. M. HOPKIRK

DR. C. S. M. Hopkirk, who has been in charge of the Department of Agriculture’s Animal Research Station, at Wallaceville for many years, has accepted an appointment with UNRRA which will involve a period of duty in Europe after shorter stays in Sydney and Washington.

Dr. Hopkirk’s distinguished career has included a great deal of important work for the animal industry during 33 years’ service with the Department. Born at Hamua on October 30, 1894, Dr. Hopkirk was educated at Brooklyn Primary School, Wellington Boys’ College, Victoria University College, and later at x Melbourne University. He joined the staff at Wallaceville on March 13, 1912. Because of staff shortages during z the early part of the 1914-18 war, much of the work of Wallaceville fell on his shoulders, with the additional burden of the care of sick and injured horses from the Remount Station at Trentham. During this time Dr. Hopkirk was a corporal in the N.Z. Veterinary Corps, and in 1915 he travelled with a draft of horses to Samoa. In 1917 he left as a trooper with the Wellington East Coast Mounted Rifles and fought in the Egyptian campaign. He returned early in 1919, spent a year at Wallaceville, and then in 1920 went to Melbourne University, where he studied in the Faculty of Veterinary Science and graduated B.V.Sc. with first class honours in December, 1923. He was offered a teaching and research scholarship to be held at Melbourne and later in Great Britain, but he preferred to return to New Zealand and take up the appointment in 1923 of officer-in-charge of what was then styled the Wallaceville Veterinary Laboratory. The growth of Wallaceville is associated with the realisation of the need for study and research on the causes of animal diseases as an essential step towards their prevention. Dr. Hopkirk fostered this work, and in 1929

laboratory accommodation was doubled to house new workers. By 1936 it was evident that still further accommodation was required, and a new building planned at that time was opened in 1940. The growth of Wailaceville is illustrated by the staff changes; in 1923 the total staff was 5, and at present it is over 60. In 1939 the laboratory was incorporated in a

newly-formed Animal Research Division of the Department of Agriculture and was named Wallaceville Animal Research Station. Dr. Hopkirk was awarded the degree of Doctor of Veterinary Science by the University of Melbourne in 1934 for a thesis on- mastitis in dairy cows. He was president of the veterinary section of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Advancement of Science at its Melbourne meeting in 1935. He made a world tour in 1938 on behalf of the Department of Agriculture, visiting all the important veterinary research stations abroad, and represented New Zealand at the first Imperial Veterinary Congress in London in 1938 and at the International Veterinary Congress at Zurich-Interlaken, Switzerland, in the same year. He has been an office bearer of the New Zealand Veterinary

Association for 21 years, and was prer wo terms, 1941-42 and 1942-43. Dr. Hopkirk has made many contributions to the knowledge of stock diseases in New Zealand, which are embodied in over 50 scientific publications. His name is most closely associated with his work on mastitis, facial eczema, black disease of sheep, and sterility problems.

N.Z. Agriculturists in Bengal

FOLLOWING a request from the Bengal Government in July, 1944, three New Zealand agricultural specialists were sent by the New Zealand Government to assist in plans to increase Bengal’s food resources, which the famine of 1943 had proved to be tragically inadequate. They were Mr. J. A. Singleton, Lecturer in Dairy Science, Massey Agricultural College, Mr. C. E. Ballinger, Research Officer in Animal Nutrition, Ruakura Animal Research Station, and Mr. S. G. Haddon, Poultry Instructor, Department of, Agriculture. Mr. Ballinger has been preparing a scheme in consultation with other technical experts to establish a 5,000or 6,000-acre dairy farm with provision for livestock breeding research on what is at present derelict land about 40 miles north of Calcutta. The Bengal Government recently approved the plan at a capital cost of about £400,000. Work on preparing the ground, irrigating it, and clearing it of malaria has now started. Mr. Singleton has concentrated on the milk supply of Calcutta and has been investigating its deficiencies.

His problems have been intensified by the fact that during the war the population of Calcutta has increased by about one and a half million people to some four million. Mr. Haddon has . spent most of his time in Bengal’s principal agricultural research station in Dacca, Eastern Bengal, examining the possibilities of modern poultry farming in rural Bengal. The task of these specialists has not been by any means easy in that the province has a population of some 60 million people, most of whom are poor and ignorant of modern farming developments, but the Bengal Government has expressed great satisfaction with the work they have done.

PHOSPHATIC FERTILISER CONTROL ORDER 1945 ANEW Phosphatic Fertiliser Control Order to replace the 1944 Order was notified in the Gazette of July 5. The new Order dispenses with the special per cow allocation for dairy farmers authorised by the 1944 Order, and in its place provision has been made for a general increase in allocations of phosphatic fertiliser to all farmers for topdressing purposes of 50 per cent, on the basic quantity allowed for topdressing under the 1944 Order. ' The allocation for wheat grown in the South Island is also increased from icwt. to I|cwt. per acre.