The Offices Of The Stock Department are upstairs in the Provincial Council Buildings, the entrance being from Durham Street. The Agricultural Department includes among its duties the inspection of all classes of stock, inspection of dairies, the administration of the Slaughtering and Inspection Act, the Inspection of fruit and plants and, if necessary, their fumigation, the rearing of different classes of poultry (carried on at Burnham, eighteen miles from Christchurch), the preparation and grading of poultry for export, at present carried on in Christchurch, and the inspection of orchards and vineries. The Stock Department forms a branch of the Agricultural Department, and deals more particularly with stock. It has also the administration of quarantine, its station for the purpose being at Quail Island, in Lyttelton Harbour. Mr. H. T. Turner, Inspector of Stock, has charge of the department, and Mr E. A. Dowden and Mr. C. A. Cunningham also are Inspectors of Stock. The Fruit Inspector, Mr A. C. Smale, and the Poultry Grader, Mr. S. Newton, have their offices in the same department. The caretaker of the farm at Burnham is Mr. W. S. MacCrae, and Mr. W. Thomas has charge of the quarantine station on Quail Island.

Mr. H. T. Turner, joined the Stock Department in 1889, and was stationed successively at Wanganui and Gore up till 1891, when he was transferred to Invercargill. On the retirement of Mr. R. F. Holderness, Mr. Turner succeeded that gentleman in the chief inspectorship for Canterbury in June, 1902.

Mr. Charles Avery Cunningham, Inspector of Agriculture and Stock for North Canterbury, joined the Government service in 1887, and five years later was appointed to his present position. Mr. Cunningham was born in Warwickshire, England, in 1845, and arrived in New Zealand in 1859.

Mr. Alexander Macpherson, Government Inspector of Dairies, Christchurch, entered the New Zealand Government service at Wellington, in March, 1900, and was appointed to his present position in January, 1901. He was born in the Highlands of Perthshire, Scotland, on the 18th of September, 1855, and is a son of Mr. William Macpherson, F.E.I.S., Headmaster of the Daniel Stewart Institution, Strath Tay. Mr. Macpherson was educated at that institution, under his father, and was trained as a teacher. He was subsequently engaged as headmaster of various Scottish schools, but in 1876 he left his native land for New Zealand, and arrived at Lyttelton, on the 22nd of June. Shortly afterwards he entered the service of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company, Ltd., in whose employment he was for fifteen years, for six years as overseer, and nine years as manager of their Pareora Estate. He resigned that position in 1891, and accepted an appointment as secretary and general manager of the Longburn Slaughtering and Freezing Company, Limited, Palmerston North. In 1895 the company went into liquidation, and Mr Macpherson was appointed official liquidator by the Supreme Court, and was complimented by Judge Kettle for the creditable way in which he fulfilled his duties. Before leaving Scotland, Mr. Macpherson was an ardent volunteer. At the age of nine years, he was a bugler in the Breadalbane Highlanders, and at thirteen he entered the ranks of the fifth volunteer battalion of Royal Highlanders, Black Watch. He has long been associated with Caledonian societies in New Zealand; was vice-president of the Palmerston North Caledonian Society, and was for three years President of the St. Andrew's Caledonian Society in the Timaru district.

Mr. A. Macpherson.

Mr. Arthur Smale, Inspector of Fruit for Christchurch, entered the Government service in the Agricultural Department in 1896, and was appointed to his present position in 1900. Mr. Smale was born at Epsom, Auckland, in 1848, and losing his parents at an early age, resided with his grandfather, Mr. George Rich, at Mount Eden, Auckland, where he got his first insight into sheepbreeding. He was educated at Christ's College, Christchurch, and then went to Otago, where he assisted his uncle, the late Mr. F. D. Rich, in pastoral pursuits. Subsequently Mr. Smale was manager, for twenty years, of a merino stud flock at Moeraki. In 1878 Mr. Smale married the only surviving daughter of the Rev. F. Hunt Oulton, Norfolk, and has a family of three sons and two daughters.