There are two agricultural colleges — Lincoln College (formerly known as Canterbury Agricultural College) situated at Lincoln about 13 miles south-west of Christchurch, and Massey University of Manawatu (formerly known as Massey Agricultural College) at Palmerston North. Lincoln has residential accommodation for 300 students, a modern library (George Forbes Memorial), a variety of buildings for teaching, research, and social purposes, a new block of laboratories in course of construction, and ample playing fields. Surrounding the college are farm lands aggregating 1,342 acres on which arable, dairy, and sheep farming are practised, while 6 miles away, on light land, is “Ashley Dene”, a sheep farm of 878 acres. Massey University has residential accommodation for over 300 men and 30 women students, ample lecture rooms and laboratories, a library, a building specially for wool-classing instruction, and well-equipped buildings for the Faculties of Veterinary Science and Food Technology, besides other amenities for the social and physical well-being of students. New buildings for arts and general studies and for biological sciences are in course of construction as well as buildings for the Veterinary Science Faculty. The farms include three properties: an area of 1,250 acres of heavy clay upland and light loam river flats surrounding the college; a hill farm, “Tuapaka”, of 1,050 acres eight miles distant on the lower slopes of the ranges; and an area of 1,900 acres of hard high country, 64 miles distant in Southern Hawke's Bay.

At both agricultural colleges the farm livestock include the principal breeds of cattle, sheep, pigs, and poultry characteristic of their respective districts. But because in the Manawatu area and in the North Island generally dairy farming is extensively practised, Massey University has more specialised equipment in that field, including a modern dairy factory and a herd of about 160 dairy cows. Massey University, therefore, provides the option dairy technology (now food technology) in its degree courses, as well as diploma courses in dairying and in dairy manufactures. It offers also a diploma in sheep farming, courses for certificates in wool-classing and in poultry, and some short courses.

Both institutions have university status, and both were recognised as professional schools of the University of New Zealand until the dissolution of that body at the end of 1961. Their matriculated students could pursue courses for degrees of that University: a three-year course for the degree of B.Ag. or B.Ag. (Hort.), and thereafter, if they so elected, to continue for a fourth year to the degree of B.Ag.Sc. or B.Ag.Sc. (Hort.), or at Massey Agricultural College to the degree of B.Ag.Sc. (Food Tech). The first part of the course for each of these degrees comprises the fundamental sciences — physics, chemistry, botany, zoology. Students who have taken any one of the four-year degrees may then proceed to the corresponding degree of M.Ag.Sc., while those with the necessary qualifications may further pursue research in appropriate topics for the degree of Ph.D.

Lincoln College is now, academically, an integral part of the University of Canterbury, and its students read for degrees of that University. Massey Agricultural College, for academic purposes, was affiliated with the Victoria University of Wellington, but in 1963 was raised to the status of a University College and in 1964 to that of an autonomous university. Students therefore read for degrees of one or other of these universities. Both, as university institutions, rely for financial support mainly on Government grants received through the University Grants Committee. Each has an academic head or principal — vice-chancellor in the case of Massey University of Manawatu — and an adequate range of professors and lecturers as well as ancillary technical staff.

Lincoln College

Lincoln College is the older institution: it is, in fact, the oldest agricultural college in the Southern Hemisphere and yields priority in the Commonwealth only to the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester in England and to the college in Ontario. Founded with an endowment of 100,000 acres of pastoral land set aside in 1873 by the Provincial Council of Canterbury, and under W. E. Ivey who had been appointed as first director in 1878, the “Lincoln School of Agriculture” was opened in 1880 with the declared object of “providing a practical education in colonial farming at moderate cost and of affording facilities for the study of related sciences.” After a good start and an increase of accommodation to provide for 30 students in addition to the original 20, the school lost prestige, partly owing to the economic depression of the 1880s, partly because of maladministration of its endowment funds by the governing body, the Board of Canterbury College (now University), and partly because of the weak organisation (though he was a good lecturer) of John Bayne who became director on the death of W. E. Ivey in 1893. In 1896 the school was placed under its own board of governors and has so continued, for, notwithstanding the academic link with the University of Canterbury, renewed and strengthened by the Act of 1961, the board has retained control of its staff and buildings and of its considerable area of farming land.

Bayne had been succeeded in 1901 by William Lowrie, and he in turn by R. E. Alexander (1909–35). Lowrie was a very strong and capable administrator who fully restored the prestige of the school or college, as it came to be recognised, and broadened its educational objectives. At first it had offered only a Diploma in Agriculture, but as more advanced instruction came to be provided, the college was recognised by the University of New Zealand and, in 1913, for the first time a student qualified for a degree in agriculture. The middle and later parts of the long reign of Alexander, overshadowed to an extent by the war and its aftermath, became again a period of stagnation. The college failed to respond to the increasing demand for more varied courses and for the greater number of the graduates needed to lead the way in agricultural teaching, research, and extension; and, mainly as a result of Lincoln's unimaginative policy, Massey College came into being. The advent of Professor E. R. Hudson (1936–52) brought new life and vigour, a great expansion of activities, and progress in every direction. In more recent years, under Dr M. M. Burns, and in part because of statutes that permit the whole course of study to be done in the college, the proportion of students reading for university degrees has greatly increased and study at university level, as well as research, has come to be of first importance. The college, however, still offers some courses of sub-university status for diplomas in agriculture, in horticulture, in valuation and farm management, and in agricultural engineering. It also gives an intensive course of eight months, open to young men with approved farming experience, and various shorter courses. College teachers and instructors also participate in a great variety of extension work among farming communities in various parts of the South Island. Farmers' field days and conferences, the publication of bulletins, broadcasting, and the writing of articles for the press are other activities of the staff.

Research is always in progress covering a range of fields that includes animal and plant nutrition, the breeding of improved crops, pasture, plants, and stock, wool production, soil science, agricultural economics, the control of plant and animal diseases, and horticultural problems. Research is supported both from college funds, and by sums provided by Departments of State, and by producer boards. Particular mention may be made of the introduction of subterranean clover by E. R. Hudson, of the demonstration of the value of lime on the light lands of Canterbury by M. M. Burns, of the trials of rams of various breeds as fat-lamb sires by I. E. Coop and others, of the cross-breeding experiments, especially Romney × Corriedale, of I. E. Coop, and the researches into some aspects of animal reproduction by D. S. Hart. But it should not be forgotten that the first director, W. E. Ivey, demonstrated the use of artificial fertilisers, especially superphosphate, while the second, J. Bayne, first demonstrated the Southdown ram as a sire of fat-lambs. The work of F. W. Hilgendorf in type selection and early cross-breeding among wheats has been widely acclaimed.

Located on, or on land adjacent to, Lincoln properties are the Crop Research Division and the Botany Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, and the headquarters of the Tussock Grassland and Mountain Land Institute.

Massey University of Manawatu

Massey Agricultural College was founded in 1926. It has already been said that in those days there was an insistent demand for something better than the training Lincoln College was offering, a demand which found expression in agitation for a college in the North Island. With a subsidised bequest from Sir Walter Buchanan, Victoria University College had in 1924 established a Chair and appointed G. S. Peren as professor, and next year Auckland University College, with a bequest from Sir John Logan Campbell, had followed suit, appointing Professor W. Riddet. Peren and Riddet, each with a Chair and a few students but without farm or equipment, got together and persuaded their respective councils to combine their resources to promote one college at a central site. The Government of the day supported the scheme and, after thorough investigation, purchased the necessary land, and the College was established in fine new buildings in beautiful grounds across the Manawatu river from Palmerston North. Professor Peren (now Sir Geoffrey Peren) was appointed principal, and Professor Riddet vice-principal, dean of dairying, and director of the independent Dairy Research Institute which was founded about the same time under the auspices of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and supported by funds contributed by Government and by the dairy industry. From small beginnings the college grew rapidly. A laboratory for food technology is built and also buildings for the Faculty of Veterinary Science were opened in March 1964. Besides this the Arts Faculty, formerly organised by the Victoria University of Wellington, in Palmerston North, has been absorbed in the new University as a Faculty of General Studies.

Massey University teachers in the Faculty of Agriculture are also continually engaged in research. In earlier days F. W. Dry's investigations into the inheritance of wool characteristics attracted wide attention. More recently J. H. Tetley's work on animal parasites, C. R. Barnicoat's investigations on the structure of teeth of the sheep and the milk yield of ewes, W. M. Webster's work on Leptospira, R. A. Barton's on meat carcasses, the crossbreeding trials (Cheviot × Romney) of A. L. Rae and others, and I. L. Campbell's work on the feeding of dairying cattle, have contributed to fundamental knowledge on these matters, and in many cases to practical applications.

Separated only by a road from Massey University are the buildings and trial grounds of the Grasslands Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. As is the case at Lincoln, there is close cooperation between the State Departments and the College, and several distinguished scientists employed in the Departments have appointments as honorary lecturers in the colleges.

Both colleges receive many students from other parts of the British Commonwealth, and both take a large and important part in training students from South-East Asia under the Colombo Plan.

by Leonard John Wild, C.B.E., M.A., B.SC.(HON.), D.SC., formerly Pro-Chancellor of the University of New Zealand, Otaki.

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