Agricultural research in New Zealand. Whatawhata Hill Country Research Station 1970. Station photos.

By Dr Clive Dalton


 History
The Whatawhata Hill Country Research Station was purchased by the New Zealand Department of Agriculture (later to be the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries) from private oweners when the need was seen  after the second world war by Research leader Dr C.P. McMeekan at the Ruakura Animal Research Station, to have an area of typical North Island hard hill country to investigate the major problems of land development,  pasture production and animal performance.

The farm was purchased in the late 1940s and work started on development in 1950 with the appointment of two key people - Mr Ted Clarke as Superintendent and Mr Joe McLean as Farm Manager.

It was a mammoth task, as the North Island hill country had been initially cleared of bush,  by men (supported by their families) who had been allocated land after the first world war.  Like most of New Zealand hill country, it was left to revert to scrub and gorse by farmers who had to walk off the land due to slumps and lack of capital and technology to maintain what had been developed.

In 1950 when Joe McLean arrived to help his father fence  the major areas, of the station, there was only horse power to pack fencing materials up the hills, and human power to clear fence lines and dig holes by hand.  Fertiliser (superphosphate) was moved by pack horse and spread by hand from a sack carried around the worker's neck.

The 1950s saw the start of a revolution with the development of top dressing from Tiger Moths, the arrival of the Land Rover, tractors and ex-army vehicles for gorse spraying.

Photos
I took these photos soon after my arrival at the Station in 1968, when enormous effort was being put into extending the internal fencing to improve grazing control and  to fly on new seed to establish better grasses and clovers.  We used to run a flock of wether sheep to pound the seed into the ground and to eat off rough pasture after cattle had been given first bite.

We scientists led by Superintendent Dr Doug Lang were out there in the summer helping to burn off bracken-fern and gorse.  Joe McLean was still planning fencing, this time dropped by helicopter, laying water supply to each paddock rather than relying on natural creek water which dried up in summer.

New chemical gorse sprays had been developed and a contractor Bill Binder with his ex-army vehicle sprayed went up death-defying slopes and dragged miles of hose through solid beds of man-high gorse.  Bill was permanently pink from the dye put in the spray to show where he had been.

Another one of Joe McLean's great jobs was to plan and supervise the making of the new airstrip and fertiliser bin made by the station engineer Neil Wood.

Further reading
Farrelly, Elizabeth J. (1986).  Whatawhata Hill Country Research Station.  A historical review.  Eljay Enterprises.

View of sheep tracks on Woolshed 1 looking towards office and woolshed

View from Back Range across the Waikato to Hamilton

Long block. Yeomans block is beyond the far ridge

View across to stock yards from airstrip

Wilson's block

Falls block and Back Range

Falls 1 paddock

Airstrip and Long block

Long 4 paddock.   North faces showing erosion caused by goat lying in the sun and digging holes

Back Range

Agricultural history in New Zealand. Herd testers. Photo album. Horses

By Dr Clive Dalton

These photos were found in an album in the  Livestock Improvement Corporation library at Newstead in Hamilton when I did the 4WRD exhibition at the Waikato Museum of Art and History in 2008.  It was the only archival material they had from the herd testing days.

It's clear from the photos that the horses were mainly ex harness pacers and trotters.  The style of the carts were interesting too, some with wooded wheels and iron tyres (ideal for the unsealed boggy roads), and others had been updated with rubber tyres for the tar seal.

Horse and herd tester unknown

Charlie Wolf with horse

Horse and location unknown

Horse and herd tester unknown

David Sinclair and horse Dale at Matamata 1962

Horse Tango

Female testers. One is Vicki Etheridge ??

Peter Copeman and his ex pacer Dick

Agricultural history in New Zealand. Herd testers. Hugh Oliver

By Dr Clive Dalton

 Hitler's plans for the Channel Islands

Jersey Island (photo Internet)

  Hugh Oliver was born in Jersey in the Channel Islands in 1933, so was aged 7 in June 1940 when the arrival of Hitler’s troops was imminent.  Britain didn’t take defence of the Channel Islands seriously, and thought they would be considered neutral by both sides in the conflict. But Hitler had other ideas, as getting his toe on these scraps of English territory, and having his troops  photographed with English ‘Bobbies’, was seen as prime propaganda to hide their evil intent. 

Wernher von Braun (photo Internet)

Hugh remembers that the Germans had dug a number of tunnels in his parish, using slave labour, similar to those dug elsewhere in Europe to house their developing intercontinental ballistic missiles. 

 Hitler was rushing this research ahead with the genius of Dr von Braun (who the Americans grabbed after the war).  Hugh says that during that period of the war, Hitler was convinced that Britain would surrender and assist him to conquer America.  The missile tunnels were all pointing west!

 Hugh’s grandfather had been a medical doctor in Jersey, and retired to Guernsey from where he took a couple of voyages to New Zealand (his birthplace) as a ship’s doctor.  During WWII he was appointed Minister of Health for the states of Guernsey.

Leaving in 15 minutes

deHavilland biplane (photo Internet)

Hugh’s father was the local doctor in Jersey airport, and he was working in this capacity when he saw a deHavilland biplane land to refuel on its way from France to England. 
As there was only one pilot and radio operator on board, Hugh’s father asked if they could take his family of six (his mother, two brothers, his sister and their nurse) and a woman who had just had a baby.  The pilot agreed, provided they could get on board in 15 minutes, as very soon after that there was a high risk of meeting the Luftwaffe.

They achieved this rapid departure, heading for Exeter airport, and Hugh remembers looking down on the Queen Mary while crossing the Channel, and being told she’d been converted to a troopship.

Hugh and the family lived in different parts of Devon, initially with relatives and it was spending time in the country that fired his love of Nature, especially insects, trees, wood and woodwork, starting whittling from an early age with his ever-present pocket knife.

The Royal Agricultural College 

Royal Agricultural College (photo Internet)

After leaving school, Hugh went to the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester from 1953-57 to complete a Diploma in Estate Management.  Several students at Cirencester had spent time in New Zealand and sang its praises.

Also, Hugh’s grandfather had been born in New Zealand where his father (Hugh’s maternal great grandfather) owned the Anchor Shipping and Foundry Company Ltd in Nelson. 

  His steam ships had brought the West Coast gold to Nelson, so that when he died the city of Nelson erected a monument in the town to honour him.  So there was another incentive for Hugh to come for a few years to see the country where his ancestors had worked.

Herd testers wanted in NZ

While back to Jersey after college while working on local farms with herds of 12 cows, he saw an advert in the local papers for herd testers in New Zealand – ‘Degree or Diploma essential’ it said.  So after applying, Hugh was interviewed in Jersey by an official called Leggett from the NZ High Commission in London.  After completing all the paper work and health checks, Hugh was accepted and on his way to New Zealand, 55 years after his family members.

The 'Captain Cook' via Panama

The Captain Cook (photo Internet)

 Hugh had to travel to Glasgow to board the ‘Captain Cook’, which after five weeks at sea sailing through the Panama Canal, arrived in Wellington on 25 July 1958. There he was met by his fiancé Molly, who had gone to New Zealand a couple of weeks earlier on the Southern Cross.

AHIA London Street Hamilton

He and Molly then boarded the ‘overnight limited express’ train from Wellington to Frankton Junction, arriving at 6am, and then were driven with at least 10 other budding herd testers to the offices of the Auckland Herd Improvement Association (AHIA) in London Street, Hamilton.   Here, they where they were lectured for two hours by Mr Ken Stone, (assistant to the manager Mr Selwyn Sheaf) in great detail, on such things as how not to get cow dung on the record sheets. 

Hugh described this as being boring and patronising for most of the audience, who after the long journey were keen to get to work. He said nobody actually fell asleep after the long journey – but it was a close thing.

Scotsman Bill Calder instructed them for three days, where they tested herds on three farms, and then they were out on their own. Bill was noted for developing new gear and equipment for the milk testing operation.

No car - collect horse and cart

Lady herd tester on the move - names unknown

The ‘car’ to be provided in the British advert Hugh said, morphed into a horse called Patch, who had to pull a rubber-tyred cart carrying all the testing gear.  Patch was 23 years old with a maximum speed of a fast walk. Hugh had to collect him from a farm at Elstow, where he’d been ‘feeding out’ during winter, and had to rider him bareback the 10km back to Waitoa.

The areas Hugh tested were between Springdale and Motumaoho, which made quite long trips for Patch, particularly as he also had to drop milk samples off at Morrinsville railway station each day, to go to the Waiato dairy factory lab for testing.  Hugh didn’t do any butterfat testing on the farms as herd testers did in other areas, because of the proximity to Waitoa.

Hugh kept a diary for 1958 and still has it; recording which farms he worked on, times of starting work and long working days.  It took a long time to get from one farm to another with horse transport.

The herd testing job was 7 days a week with 5 days off at the end of the month, with a month off in mid winter when the cows were dry, so he had little time for himself and Molly, which he wanted. Hugh said he was fascinated by the bush on Mr Te Aroha, but never had time to explore it. 

Letter of resignation

Hugh didn’t find the herd testing routine of going to 25 different farms over a month a very stimulating challenge, and before the end of the first month, he had written a letter of resignation to Selwyn Sheath, who objected to Hugh’s  ‘Dear Sir’, and ‘Yours faithfully’ as he told Hugh this was not how letters were penned in New Zealand.

Sheath told Hugh in no uncertain terms that he had set a very bad example for the other English immigrants, and added that he had spoken to the Labour Department and reported that ‘you may find they don’t have much for you’. Selwyn clearly had Hugh in his sights, and there was the other business of Hugh having to refund his £119 fare, as he hadn’t stayed in farming for the required two-year bonded period.

Hugh was offered a job on a pig farm in Taumarunui when Molly already had a good job in Hamilton, so he decided to try his luck looking for employment touting his technical experience around various businesses in Hamilton.  He had an interview with the farm manager at the Ruakura Research Station collecting dung sample at Number 5 dairy, but declined the offer, as he preferred not to work with animals – at least not their rear ends.

Railway platelayer

Hugh eventually found employment as a temporary surfaceman on the NZ Railway, repairing and repacking the lines at Frankton Junction. 
This was hard and dirty work but a useful education for a very new and green ‘Pom’. Hugh said the best part about this job was that it allowed him to get a 3% home loan as a ‘public servant’.

Photo shows the tracks at Frankton Junction where Hugh applied his skills.

Rukuhia Soil Research Station

One of the girls (Glee) who was boarding with Molly moved on to board with Jo Karlovsky who was a seniour scientist at the Rukuhia Soil Research Station, and who was complaining that he was about to lose two of his technicians. Glee told Joe that she knew someone who had a qualification in agriculture, and who was working on the railways.  Jo was interested, so an interview was arranged for Hugh with George Hopewell who was Joe’s section leader. All went well, and after three months on the railways in 1958, Hugh was delighted to be out in the fresh air again mowing grass.

Hugh’s job at Rukuhia consisted of mowing and weighing grass from different experimental plots, measuring growth responses of different pasture species on different soil types, after varying rates of different fertilisers.  This was pioneering work at that time in the drive to increase agricultural production, especially from the peat soils in the Waikato which were being rapidly developed for dairying.

After four years of flies, Hugh moved into the Microbiology Section at Rukuhia working on a fly, which was causing problems in the fledgling NZ mushroom growing industry.  In cooperation with Professor Roy Harrison at Lincoln College, Hugh spent August 1965 in residence there, assisting with research on the fly, which was not present in the South Island.

Ruakura 

Dr L.R. Wallace

In 1966 the Rukuhia Microbiology Unit was moved to the Ruakura campus as the Director of Agricultural Research, Dr Lyn Wallace, decided that all entomology work should be done at Ruakura. Prior to this, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, had passed on any insect problems to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (D.S.I.R) in Nelson.

So Hugh was able to join the rapidly expanding entomology staff at Ruakura who had to deal with pests like solider fly, porina, black beetle and many more in those days of DDT and Dieldrin.  From 1975 until Hugh retired in 1993, he worked on insect pathology and general entomology, with a special interest in pests of stored products in the dairy industry.  

Hugh’s loss to herd testing in New Zealand was fortunate, as it allowed him to make a significant contribution to New Zealand farming through his work on controlling the many insect pests which were, and still are, a major threat to pasture and crop production.

Hugh (pictured right) has continued his work on pests in stores for more than 20 years after his retirement because of his recognised expertise.

Agricultural history in New Zealand. Herd testers. Roger Dean

By Dr Clive Dalton

Interest in travel 

 Roger Dean grew up in Gillingham in Dorset surrounded by farms, and was always interested in travel, particularly to Australia or New Zealand.  After leaving school he did a Certificate in Agriculture at the Dorset Farm Institute and responded to an advert in the British Farmers Weekly for herd testers in New Zealand, which seemed an ideal way to achieving his ambition to work in farming and see the world. 

After making application and having an interview and medical checks, he was accepted but then found that herd-testing positions were all filled at that time in 1962.  He was not put off, and was prepared to go to New Zealand as a farm worker until herd testing jobs were available.

Full fare paid

Under the immigration scheme, the NZ government paid his full travel costs, with the stipulation that he was bonded for two years.  He sailed on the ‘Stratheden’ from Tilbury, via the Suez Canal, arriving in Wellington in November 1967.

Stratheden

 Hawera bound 

After arrival in Wellington, he travelled by bus to Hawera where he was met by his employer Reeve Williams and started work milking around 100 cows for town supply, through a double 8-aside herringbone shed. This was very advanced as 75% of  sheds in the area were still walk-throughs with 6, 8, or 10 sets of cups.

After 18 months on the farm, a herd-testing job became available with the Taranaki Herd Testing Association, for the area near where he’d been working.   This required him to go to New Plymouth for 10 days training before starting his round of 25 herds, which were mainly Jerseys.

Standard 10 car

The Taranaki Herd Testing Association provided Roger with a Standard 10 car, and he bought a trailer for all the gear needed for the job. Horses and carts had all been replaced by vehicles by this time in Taranaki, and were only still being used in Northland.
  
Roger herd tested for about three years before retuning to England for six months and after his return to New Zealand, he went herd testing with a territory around Eureka and Tauwhare. At Eureka his boss was Ken Stone.

Herringbone sheds

Herringbone sheds were becoming very popular in this area, having been developed in Gordonton, although the majority were still walk-throughs.  Equipment had improved with the arrival of the milk meter, which did away with all the physical work of lifting buckets on to spring balances to record milk yield.

  

Equipment and acid for testing in Hawera was kept at a store in New Plymouth, and the Waikato depot was in West Street, Frankton.  Roger’s boss in Hawera was Cliff Broad and Tommy Hair was his supervisor.

The Waikato herd testers depot in West Street in Frankton in 2014.  The garage on the side was for the first truck owned by the Auckland Herd Improvement Association. Testers came here to renew their supplies of Sulphuric acid, amyl alcohol and replace broken glassware.

 There was only one TV in Roger’s Hawera testing round, so playing cards and talk were the main forms of evening entertainment.  Roger made life-long friends from both the Hawera and Waikato herds he tested, and still corresponds with many of them.

Artificial Insemination 

Artificial Insemination (AI) was just really getting going in the early 1960s, though not in pedigree herds which were the main herds tested, as pedigree breeders saw AI as a large threat to their income made from selling bulls for natural service.

Photo shows LIA veterinarian and AI pioneer David Caldwell (on right) , showing ?? Johnstone and Trevor Bigwood (centre)  the special container developed to transport fresh semen in tubes, packed in a box of ice to go by train, bus and air from Hamilton to insemintors in different areas.

There were times Roger said that he would have liked a permanent base, so when a job was advertised on the sheep farm at the Ruakura Animal Research Station in 1969, he applied and was appointed. 

Long service at Ruakura

After arrival, the farm manger Des Hayward saw his experience and suggested that he would be more suited to working at one of the five dairy farms, and it was at the Number 5 Nutrition Centre where Roger spent the main part of his career, making a major contribution to dairy research at Ruakura before retiring in 2003.

Agricultural history in New Zealand. Herd testers. Tony and Marion Wrench.

By Dr Clive Dalton

Interviewed August 2004

Tony Wrench grew up in Worcestershire in England where he lived on a farm and was always interested in Jersey cows.  He used to write to the New Zealand Jersey Association and they’ send him information and photos which fed his  appetite for the breed.

Then he saw an advertisement in the Farmers Weekly newspaper for jobs in New Zealand working as herd testers. 

RMS Atlantis (photo from Internet)

The job was advertised as working 25 days per month with good pay and travel to New Zealand provided.  So after applying and being accepted for a job, Tony came to New Zealand on the Atlantis in March 1950 when he was 22 years old.

  About another dozen young men with farming backgrounds came on the same ship and Tony had very vivid memories of their arrival in Wellington.  

 He like other potential employees travelled up to Frankton junction by overnight train, and then proceeded to the offices of the Auckland Herd Improvement Association to be addressed by the manager Mr Selwyn Sheaf.

Back to Ohura

But then, immediately after this, Tony was on the train again going back down the line to Ohura in the King Country, to live and work with Doug Watts for six weeks while he learned what New Zealand dairy farming was all about, and how herd testing was part of it. Following this, Tony went to Claudelands in Hamilton for two weeks practical herd testing training.

Tony stayed in the Ohura area for two years and he had kept a letter from Selwyn Sheaf offering him a job in the Waikato with pay of ten pounds, one shilling and three pence per week and a truck provided to do his work.  This was a great improvement as at Ohura he had a Clydesdale horse called Phil and a cart with all his gear on board.  He was sad to leave the Ohura community as he had made many friends.

 The process of herd testing was first to arrive at the farm with all the gear in good time to meet the farmer and set up to test the evening milking.   Then was the job of settling in to stay the night to test the following morning’s milk before going on to the next farm on his circuit.  

Tony Wrench getting help to transfer milk into bucket for weighing. Note the walk-through milking bails. 

Some of the cows were branded but most had a name which had to be entered on the shed book. Tony remembered visiting a Maori farmer in Kennedy’s bay who named his cows from Greek mythology. Tony tested on a round of 27 herds and tested one each day a month.

The routine was for milk from each cow to be put in a test bucket, which was then lifted on to a spring balance and weighed. After that a sample was taken from it before the bucket was tipped into the vat.  The fat content was worked with the Gerber test where milk and sulphuric acid were mixed in a special tube, and after centrifuging; the fat content could be read off.  The herd testing offices were then in Wesley Chambers in Victoria street in Hamilton.

Like all herd testers, Tony said that his herd testing visits were valued greatly by the farmer and family for social reasons, as land was still in the early development stage in Ohura with bush being cleared. Hospitality was good and with no TV, chat and cards were the order of the evenings.

When Tony first started work, cowsheds were four double-up walk-through sheds, but by 1954, the herringbone shed had taking over almost completely. 

The  Auckland Herd Improvement head office

Office staff at the Hamilton LIA head office in London street

Tony met his wife Marion who worked on handling all the herd records in the Auckland Herd Improvement Association office in London Street.  They got married in 1954.  Les Jane was involved with Selwyn Sheaf in managing the herd testing programme in the region.

Tony said that Artificial Breeding (AB) was racing ahead as herd testing progressed, as herd testing was the means by which good cows were identified to be mated to top bulls to produce even better bulls for farmers through AB.

Marion Wrench’s early life was spent with her father working at the dairy factory at Turua near Thames before moving to Hamilton. After she left school at Hamilton Tech she went to work in the Herd Improvement Offices, and she remembers when the office moved from Wesley Chambers in Victoria Street in Hamilton to the new offices in London Street.

There were 50-60 people – mainly women, who worked there with Mrs Baker and Mrs Yates in charge. Marion said they could be tough but generally not too bad! A major bit of progress was when Arthur Ward introduced accounting machines and adapted them to help calculate fat percentage.  These were Burroughs calculating machines which were well advanced for the time.

Marion remembers having fun with other young members of the staff who had parties in the staff room from time to time. They even had an annual trip to Waihi beach.  

The herd testers’ ball held on July 31^st was the highlight of each year before the herd testing season started in earnest.  It was always held in the Peachgrove CAC hall.

You can see from the photo below that herd testers certainly enjoyed each other's company when they could get together before the start of the next season.

2014
The late Tony Wrench ended up working at the LIC headquarters at Newstead in the AB equipment store before his retirement.

New Zealand agricultural history. Herd testing. Jim Crawford

By Dr Clive Dalton

Family farm too small 

Former herd testers - Jim Crawford (right) and Alex Henderson

 Jim Crawford came from a farming family in Ireland, but there was little future for farmer’s sons who got their keep, their clothes and no pay.  Jim’s brother was on the farm but there was no room for both of them, so Jim who was living in Bangor, County Down was training to be a supermarket manager.

Looking for a new future, Jim and his brother got interested in New Zealand about 1958, as Jim’s father had lived in New Zealand from 1922 to 1926 during the time of the depression- and as a result had to return home.

First class cabins only

After finding out about passages to New Zealand and work prospects, they found out from the New Zealand Shipping Company, that there was only two bookings left if they wanted to sail at this time, and they were single first class cabins at a cost of £190 each!  Before leaving to emigrate, they had to go through all the necessary health checks, but Jim’s brother was turned down by the New Zealand Immigration Department.  Undaunted, they still decided to come and pay their own fare. 

SS Rangitata

So they left from London’s Tilbury Docks on the NZ Shipping Company ‘Rangitata’ for the five-week voyage to New Zealand via the Canary Islands, Curacao, the Panama Canal and Pitcairn Island.

SS Rangitata passing through the Panama Canal (photo John Wallace)

Single rooms in first class Jim says was luxury, but they spent most of their time in tourist class where there was much more fun, as tourist class passengers couldn’t visit them on first class.  It was a five-week voyage arriving in Wellington on 4 August 1960, to a cool morning at 6am.   There was nobody to meet them so after a day or so they boarded the  ‘limited overnighter’ train arriving at Frankton Junction at 6am to be met by a retired Irish farmer from Morrinsville., who had been a friend of their father’s.

Rangitata irst class dining room (photo John Wallace)

 Okaihau

 After a week or so they went to stay with their uncle at Okaihau where they worked on his farm helping with milking and other chores.  Things didn’t go too well after Jim was reprimanded by the Uncle for wasting water when washing the yard. Jim suggested the Uncle and not the yard would get the next wash!

Morrinsville farm job

Then Jim, leaving his brother up North, got a phone call about a job to milk 180 cows in two sheds on a 700-acre farm on Piako road near Morrinsville. Part of the farm was still being developed and was in Titree.  Jim really didn’t have all that much experience of farming but took the job, it was a bit of a shock to get up at 4am and milk for two and a half hours at either end of the day.

He was paid £8 per week with board provided, and worked there for over year before getting a job offer up north near his brother in a butchery for £10 a week, where he stayed with his brother until his brother got married and Jim looked for other work.

Herd testers wanted

Herd testing jobs were being advertised at the end of 1963 and Jim applied and got one to test herds in the area.  He was trained by Allan Bird at one evening milking, followed by the next morning milking, and that was it, so Allan must have been happy with his abilities.  Jim was on his own.

His round had 24 farms with herds of 24-180 cows in the Waipapa area, most of them identified by their names. They were mainly Jerseys but then Friesians started to be introduced.  He was provided with a Ferguson tractor and trailer to carry all his testing equipment from one farm to the other : they were certainly not designed for speed.

Speeding Fergie

Harry Ferguson's famous tractor

 

On one occasion Jim got a great scare when he was rushing from a farm at Pakaraka and had to be at his next farm at Awanui (some distance away) by 1pm – so he was running late.  Going down a hill outside Okaihau he put the Fergie out of gear to gain speed passing cars and buses on his way. 

It was not a good decision, as all his gear (including 5 gallon containers of sulphuric acid and 5 gallons of amyl alcohol), and delicate glassware were rattling around in the trailer, and at that speed, the Fergie’s gearbox was not designed to get back into gear. Jim didn’t repeat the exercise!  He said that despite his worst fears, not a thing was broken.

Staying the night with each farmer was always a pleasant social occasion. Jim enjoyed staying on farms as the hospitality was so good with no TV and only the radio – so instead people talked to each other!   Cards were also a popular game at the time.

The pressure was always on after the morning milking, to complete all the work of testing each cow’s sample, writing up the records and leaving a copy for the farmer. Then each day a composite sample had to be taken and sent to the lab to make sure that his testing was accurate, as farmers were paid on the butterfat content.  The Northland Herd Improvement had its HQ in Whangarei for all the herd testing north of the Auckland Harbour bridge .

Physically demanding job

The work of herd testing was physically demanding as before milk meters came along, milk from each cow was weighed in stainless steel buckets with the milk from each cow. It then had to be lifted on to a Salter spring balance for weighing before being tipped into the separator to collect the cream for the factory.  After each milking and carrying out the Gerber fat test, all the glassware had to be washed and dried in preparation for the next milking.

Graham Platt was Jim’s boss along with Bill Harry. There were few female herd testers at the time and everyone was so busy that they rarely met. They only heard from the farmer who had been there to test the previous month. It was part of their training not to make any comment on any herds’ records to other farmers.  So everyone looked forward to their Annual Conference and Herd Testers’ ball.  Jim also served as a delegate for the Herd Testers’ Union a year

Up to all the tricks

There were some smart farmers around, and herd testers had to be wide-awake to all their tricks, as their aim was to boost the fat produced by each cow to improve their sale prospects, especially if they were pedigree breeders whose main market was selling bulls. This was before AB was in common use.

Reading a Gerber tube to assess fat content of milk sample

Jim had a regular testing routine in the Moromaku Valley of starting at the top and moving from farm to farm finishing at the bottom.  He got the message (probably from farming neighbours) that one farmer at the bottom always saved up good pasture a day or so before the test to boost the fat levels, so Jim phoned him the night before and told him (due to unforeseen circumstances!) that he would be there to test the next afternoon and the following morning. The farmer phoned back to say this would not be convenient, and he had contacted Jim’s boss in Whangarei about it.  Jim’s boss agreed with Jim and the test went on – with lower fat levels this time!

Some farmers fed meal before herd testing and some used to strip the cow after the machine was removed, and then even wait a while and strip her again.  This meant that you could be still in the milking shed at 9pm.

Breeds of dairy cattle

The Jersey breed - cow typical of 1950-1960 model

 
Jerseys were the main breed but were phased out the last of the dairy Shorthorn herds, but the big change came with the introduction of Friesians, and veterinarian John Sterling was the first to do this on his Ohaeawai farm.  John also used to call for help when any tom cat needed to be deprived of its manhood, in those days held down a gumboot!





Herd testing was not a full year’s job and if it was dry summer in Northland, which was common, testers could be unemployed from February through to July, so they had to find other work, generally on farms during haymaking.

Share milking

As well as herd-testing in Northland, Jim went  to 20% lower-order share-milking near Waipapa with 50-60 cows, but had to break the contract due to ill-health. After working for some time at Matakohe Store, he returned to herd-testing.

Pigs

In 1967 after herd testing for 5 years in Northland, Jim headed back to Northern Ireland for a working holiday and to spend time with ageing parents. While there he worked at the Pig Progeny Testing Station at Greenmount Agricultural College in Antrim, gaining valuable knowledge of pig husbandry. 

NZ Dairy Company and Fonterra

Returning to New Zealand in 1969 (now married to Margaret), Jim hoped to be able to eventually purchase a piggery and managed several pig farms with that goal in mind – unfortunately a serious bout of leptospirosis make that impossible, and 37 years employment with NZDC (now Fonterra)  on the laboratory side of things followed.