The reasons for the declining trend in pigmeat production since 1940–41 must be examined in any attempt to evaluate efficiency in producing pigmeat. The table clearly sets out the change in composition and the reduction in quantity of dairy by-products available for pig feeding.

Approximately one-third of the skim milk, and all the buttermilk from buttermaking, is used for making milk powder or casein. The skim milk available for pigs has decreased by 175 million food units (gallons). Meantime, whey available has increased by 83 million food units. The whey is not so valuable a food as skim milk, and not as readily available to the farmers; therefore it is not all being used. It is thus clear that efficiency has increased in terms of pigmeat produced from the shrinking, basic dairy-by-product feed supply. This could be improved especially by better farm husbandry and by wasting less whey.

Pig production in New Zealand is a sideline of dairying, consequently based on small production units scattered over the dairying areas, especially where milk is separated at home. There are a few larger units near cheese and casein factories, either run by the factories or merely supplied with whey. The 1949–50 Census of Farm Production (the most recent figures) shows that almost 88 per cent of the pigs were on dairy farms. Mixed farming, where pig production was more than a sideline, accounted for only 2·2 per cent. Specialised piggeries, including those based on swill as well as dairy by-products, accounted for 6·4 per cent of the pigs. The few others produced were “household” pigs. Though tanker collection of whole milk for cheese or casein manufacture has resulted in entire groups of farmers ceasing pig production, this has been partly balanced by the increased production by suppliers conveniently placed for delivery of whey, by one or more specialised whey-feeding piggery units, and by factory piggeries.

The domestic pig is important for its efficiency in converting surplus grain and vegetable scraps into meat. Pigs became established during the main settlement of the 1840s; pork was included in the first shipment of frozen meat in 1882.

Before successful dairy and meat industries were established, pigs were fed mainly on grain and hence flourished up to 1886 in the South Island grain-growing districts. After 1886 these districts declined, while the North Island dairy farming expanded. By 1900 there were only 100,000 pigs in the South Island and this has been the average number since then. The North Island increase did not offset the South Island decline for many years after 1900; the total number of pigs in New Zealand increased slowly from 1900 to the early 1920s, with a temporary drop during the First World War.

The establishment of the New Zealand Meat Producers' Board in 1922 began a new phase for the pig industry. The Board, with firms interested in developing the export trade, built up a demand in Britain for New Zealand pigmeats. A drive was made to encourage the production of pigs in the dairying districts and particularly the production of porkers (which had been specially praised by the trade) for export. Export killings increased from less than 30,000 in 1922–23 to almost 160,000 in 1928–29 out of a total kill of about 517,000. In the five years from 1924–25 to 1928–29, 82 per cent of the pigmeat produced was consumed locally. Production did not rise again until the depression of the 1930s. Pig-recording clubs had prepared the way for an appreciation of the pig's value in turning what was little more than dairying waste into a profit which helped the dairy farmers to keep solvent. The following table gives some idea of the potential production (and the previous waste of dairy byproducts); the number of pigs slaughtered and the weight of pigmeat produced were doubled in the four years from 1932–33 to 1935–36.

Picton is situated on a small flat enclosed on the north by Waitohi Bay, commonly called Picton Harbour, an inlet of Queen Charlotte Sound, and elsewhere by high hills. It is 18 miles by road or rail north of Blenheim, and is 23 miles east by road from Havelock. The South Island Main Trunk railway terminates at Picton, 218 miles north-east of Christchurch. Picton is the main port of Marlborough and is the South Island terminal of the inter-island rail-car ferry. The port is an important part of the launch transport system serving Queen Charlotte and Kenepuru Sounds. The main activities of the district, including the Sounds area, are sheep raising and cattle grazing. Some dairying is practised and there is a cheese factory at Koromiko (6 miles south). Sea fisheries around the coast are worked by vessels based at Picton. At Te Awaiti (18 miles north-east) on Tory Channel, a whaling station was established by John Guard in 1827. It ceased operations in 1965.

Picton is a servicing and distributing centre not only for its immediate environs but also for the greater part of Marlborough Sounds. It is also an important tourist centre and serves as a dispersal point for visitors to the Sounds. Industrial activities of the town include meat freezing, fish packing and curing, general engineering, and small-boat building.

The site of Picton was originally occupied by the Maori settlement of Waitohi, also called Te Wera o Waitohi. Waitohi Bay is said to have been discovered by Captain William Steine, of the ship King William the Fourth, in 1832. Steine named it Horne Bay after the owner of the ship. In December 1844 Francis Dillon Bell, representing the New Zealand Company, and Sir George Grey, the Governor, purchased the site from the Maoris, who agreed to move to Waikawa Bay. The town was surveyed in 1849 and the New Zealand Company called it Newton. Until 1859 the settlement was known by several names. When Marlborough Province was created in 1859, the town was renamed Picton after Sir Thomas Picton, “the Hero of Badajoz”, who fell at Waterloo, and was declared to be the provincial capital. But in 1865 the provincial capital was transferred to Blenheim. With the discovery of the Wakamarina goldfield, the population of Picton in 1864 increased to 3,000 but by 1866 had declined due to the rapid exhaustion of payable ground. There was more gold mining activity in 1888 in the Mahakipawa district, west of the borough, but the field petered out after a few years. In 1874 coal of good quality was found at Shakespeare Bay but the seam disappeared after some 600 tons had been extracted. An antimony lode was mined at Endeavour Inlet, in Queen Charlotte Sound, about 1892. This was gradually worked out and mining had ceased by 1953. The railway to Blenheim was commenced in 1873 and was opened for traffic on 18 November 1875. Through-rail communication to Christchurch via Blenheim was achieved in 1945. Terminal facilities established at the port came into operation in August 1962 and provide berthage for N.Z.G.S. Aramoana which maintains a ferry service between Picton and Wellington for railway rolling stock, motor vehicles, and passengers. Picton was constituted a borough in 1876.

POPULATION: 1951 census, 1,924; 1956 census, 2,079; 1961 census, 2,320.

by Brian Newton Davis, M.A., Vicar, St. Philips, Karori West, Wellington and Edward Stewart Dollimore, Research Officer, Department of Lands and Survey, Wellington.

Photographs of sunken wrecks, of animals on the seabed, or of fish swimming about coral reefs, are often seen nowadays. Free-divers hunting fish or exploring in shallow waters take photographs of features in their surroundings. Oceanographers who formerly had to reconstruct the appearance of the seabed from the jumbled contents of a dredge, are now taking photographs which throw light on the little-known habits of the bottom fauna.

Many different varieties of underwater camera exist. The design of the camera will depend on whether it is to be held by a diver or lowered from a ship, and whether it is for taking still photographs or moving pictures. A typical hand-held submarine camera would consist of a normal camera mounted inside a light-weight, watertight, pressure-resistant case with a window and fitted with controls passing to the outside of the case, which enable the diver to operate and adjust the camera under water. Often electronic flashlight or simpler flash bulb outfits are modified for use under water and coupled to the camera. Lighting for underwater movie cameras is more complicated, as a steady source of light is required. Waterproofed floodlamps, connected with a source of electricity on a boat or dry land, are usually used.

Remote underwater cameras normally used by research ships must have chambers which can withstand considerable hydrostatic pressure. O-ring seals are commonly used to seal the window and entrance into such chambers, as well as to seal lead-ins for the triggering switch and the coupling between camera and flash. The camera mechanism in remote underwater cameras may be specially built, and such cameras are normally fitted with an electric or clockwork mechanism to advance the film.

Light is absorbed by sea water and is scattered by suspended matter always present, to a greater or lesser degree, in the sea. Because of this photographs taken in oceanic water are usually of better quality than those taken near sources of sediment, such as wave-beaten shores, or river mouths, or in muddy harbours. In average oceanic water, about 96 percent of the light from the surface has been absorbed at a depth of 100 ft. In clean sea water, blue light penetrates deeper than red, but if much suspended matter is present blue light will be scattered to a greater extent than will red. To restore the colour balance, especially in submarine colour photography, filters are often used, both with artificial and with natural light. When light passes between water and air, it is refracted or bent. This introduces two effects to be considered when submarine photographs are taken. First, the camera must be focused at three-quarters the actual camera-to-object distance, and, secondly, when a light beam is refracted, it becomes a diverging spectral band (as when light passes through a glass prism), with the result that unless a supplementary lens is used, the photograph is blurred towards the edges.

Submarine photography has become a valuable technique in oceanographic research. No longer can the saying, “Out of sight is out of mind” apply to the depths of the ocean.

When plans were being made to join the North and South Islands of New Zealand by an electric power cable, oceanographers and engineers took bottom photographs along the proposed routes across tide-swept Cook Strait. The appearance of the sea-floor in these photographs gave essential information on the conditions the cable might have to withstand.

A submarine camera has been used in the clear, oceanic water in Foveaux Strait to photograph the valuable oyster beds and adjacent sea floor. These photographs reveal oysters in their natural surroundings: they show the type of substrate that oysters prefer, as well as the other animals that live there, such as the snake-tailed brittlestars, starfish, and sponges.

In the Ross Sea, photographs of the sea floor reveal a remarkable fauna of sponges, horny corals, and sea-mosses as luxuriant as the surface of the Antarctic Continent is barren.

by John Sidney Bullivant, M.SC., New Zealand Oceanographic Institute, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Wellington.

In an isolated community, such as New Zealand, photographers quite early realised the advantages to be gained from organised societies and in 1888 the first Photographic Society of New Zealand was formed in Nelson. The Wellington Camera Club founded in 1892 came next, followed by the formation of the Dunedin Photographic Society and societies were formed in Christchurch by 1895 and in Auckland later. For many years these camera clubs were the main photographic organisations in New Zealand both for amateurs and for professionals. Other clubs followed slowly in the smaller centres and in 1957 the professional photographers formed their own association, the N.Z.P.P.A. The N.Z.P.P.A. grew from a small beginning made by B. Hobday in 1938 when he founded in Auckland the North Island Photographers Association. Shortly after the Second World War, an Institute of New Zealand Photographers was formed and incorporated, and this institute and the North Island Association in 1947 amalgamated to form the present New Zealand Professional Photographers' Association.

During his term of office as Governor-General of New Zealand, Lord Bledisloe took a keen interest in amateur photography and presented to the associated camera clubs a very fine trophy, later known as the Bledisloe Cup, to be competed for annually in monochrome photography between all clubs. This competition has now become one of the major annual photographic events and invariably displays work of an extremely high standard.

For many years photographic competitions have been a feature of all local A. and P. shows throughout New Zealand and these competitions have no doubt done a great deal towards fostering and promoting the hobby of amateur photography in this country. After the close of the Second World War, when modern developments of photography began to become available in New Zealand, it was felt by many people that some central organisation for photography was needed on a national basis. Although several of the major clubs had been affiliated with the “Royal” for many years, this did not take the place of a national body. Largely due to the personal efforts of F. L. Bowron, of Christchurch, a photographic convention was organised in Queenstown in 1951. From this the Photographic Society of New Zealand has evolved and today it is a firmly established New Zealand organisation coordinating photographic activities and fostering the development of societies in smaller towns. It holds its annual conventions alternately between the North and South Islands and promotes regional meetings at various locations throughout the country during the year. It has assumed responsibility for the running of the annual Bledisloe Cup competition and the Wiltshire Cup competition, which is similar in scope and parallel to the Bledisloe Cup. The Wiltshire Cup, which is for colour photography, in the form of transparencies, was founded in 1947 by the Christchurch Photographic Society in memory of Eric Wiltshire of Christchurch. This society successfully managed the competition until it was handed over to P.S.N.Z. The Davies Memorial Cup, for annual competition in natural history photography, was organised by the Nelson Photographic Society as a memorial to William C. Davies. It also is controlled by P.S.N.Z. and is a feature of the P.S.N.Z. annual conventions along with the P.S.N.Z. national salons of photography both in monochrome and in colour. P.S.N.Z. also runs its own monthly competitions in connection with the New Zealand Camera, the official publication of the society. Under the auspices of P.S.N.Z., photographic activity has grown at a tremendous rate in New Zealand to the extent that P.S.N.Z. has now some 72 affiliated camera clubs and societies under its wing. Unquestionably the impetus given to photography in New Zealand by P.S.N.Z. has paved the way for the recent commercial venture into photo-journalism by the production of the magazine Photographics New Zealand.

In the international field P.S.N.Z. has successfully launched several exchange portfolios both in monochrome and in colour photography between groups of photographers in New Zealand and in the U.S. and Britain. The international exhibitions of photography, which are becoming more frequent in New Zealand, have also been largely promoted through the good offices of P.S.N.Z.

Photography today is practised throughout New Zealand by thousands of enthusiastic amateurs and hundreds of professional photographers whose work, besides encompassing the spheres of portraiture, commercial, and advertising photography, takes them into the fields of science, forensic medicine, criminology, and photo-journalism. There are many individuals, too numerous to mention, producing outstanding work in the pictorial, portrait, commercial, and scientific fields, but possibly Brian Brake, A.R.P.S., is worthy of special note as being the first New Zealand-born photographer to win international fame in photo-journalism and become a member of the Magnum group of photographers. Brian Brake's work in colour has already appeared in such journals as the National Geographic Magazine, Life, Paris Match, The Queen, and Epoca.

by John Tenison Salmon, D.SC., F.R.S.N.Z., F.R.E.S., A.R.P.S., Associate Professor of Zoology, Victoria University of Wellington.

As New Zealand is a land richly endowed with natural beauty and with phenomena of great scientific interest, it was natural that photography should become the hobby of many individuals interested in recording its beauty and its natural history. Some of these persons became members of the Royal Photographic Society of London and attained great distinction internationally in the field of photography. Especial mention should be made of Gerald E. Jones, of Wellington, who became the first New Zealand born photographer to earn the title F.R.P.S., gaining this distinction in 1912. George Chance of Dunedin, elected F.R.P.S. in 1923, shares with Jones the honours for pictorial photography in New Zealand. In 1954 Chance became overseas (New Zealand) corresponding member of the council of the Royal Photographic Society. William C. Davies, appointed photographer to the Cawthron Institute in 1920, paid much attention to photographing New Zealand natural history, particularly plants. He was awarded an A.R.P.S. in 1931, followed in 1932 by F.R.P.S.; later, in 1938, he became the first and only Hon. F.R.P.S. for New Zealand. In 1934 Davies was awarded the R.P.S. Gold Medal for his photographic work in the fields of science. During his years of service to the Cawthron Institute, Davies amassed a collection of many thousands of negatives, a small selection from which is reproduced in his book New Zealand Plants. Davies retired from the Cawthron Institute in 1945 but continued actively in scientific photography until his death in 1952.

Professional portrait photography became accepted in New Zealand very early in its development. The standard of portrait work in this country has always been high and several notable photographers have arisen in this sphere.

Photography both as a hobby and as a profession came to New Zealand with many of our earlier settlers and, through these and those who have followed them in the practice of this art, much of our history has been preserved in photographs. Collections of prints and negatives are deposited with the Turnbull Library in Wellington, with the metropolitan and provincial museums, and with the Tourist and Publicity Department. Many still remain in private hands. Through accident or negligence many more, no doubt, have been lost.

Amongst these pioneer photographers, mention should be made of the Burton brothers of Dunedin who established themselves there in 1859, taking photographs of the early development of that city. The Burton brothers continued recording the scenery and settlement of New Zealand, travelling extensively all over the country until about 1891 when the firm was taken over by Messrs Muir and Moodie, also of Dunedin. The new firm continued in the tradition of the Burton brothers, and made frequent journeys up and down the country at regular intervals, photographing the magnificent scenery of the mountains, hot springs, lakes, and forests of New Zealand as well as recording the growth of our towns, cities, and industries. Their original collection of negatives, now in the Dominion Museum in Wellington, shows that Muir and Moodie continued to function until 1910 under their own names and the older name of Burton Bros., as negatives produced between 1891 and 1910 can be found in the collection still bearing the label “Burton Bros.”. Towards the turn of the century, however, “Muir and Moodie” appeared to be more commonly used. The latest authenticated negatives of the firm appear to be dated about 1915. This negative collection includes magnificent 8 × 10 in. collodion wet-plate negatives of the Pink and White Terraces, Lake Rotomahana, as well as of other scenes from the Rotorua district prior to, and after, the great eruption of Mount Tarawera in 1886.

Both Muir and Moodie and the Burton brothers worked mostly with whole-plate cameras but, in addition to the 8 × 10 in. already mentioned, they also used 12 × 10 in. and 15 12 in. cameras for some of their more special assignments. Their collection contains some wonderful 15 × 12 in. negatives of the Mount Cook and Milford Sound regions made on some of the earliest dry plates. Most professional photographers today would cavil at carrying a 15 × 12 in. camera, loaded with glass negatives, to the summit of the Mackinnon Pass on the Milford Track but the Burtons apparently did just this on at least two occasions.

Within the sphere of recording Maori lore and customs, several photographers were active quite early in the development of New Zealand. James McDonald, who later travelled the Wanganui River and Urewera Country with the noted ethnologist Elsdon Best, is especially worthy of mention for his collection of many thousands of negatives dealing with the Maoris. Augustus Hamilton and, later, his son Harold, also paid particular attention to photographing Maori carvings and other articles. The negatives from these early photographs have found their way into the archives of the Tourist and Publicity Department and the museums.

The interest in philately as a hobby probably had its beginnings in the United Kingdom in 1840 with the first issue of stamps, but it was not until much later that concerted collection began, and the first philatelic societies were formed. In New Zealand, the present Royal Philatelic Society was formed in September 1888 as the Philatelic Society of New Zealand. This was the first society of its kind in the country, but since then the numbers have grown steadily. Today there are 26 affiliated to a Federation of Philatelic Societies which coordinates their activities. Most of the societies, and the federation, issue regular newsletters describing their activities, and giving current stamp news.

The Royal Philatelic Society has published several outstanding works on the postage stamps of New Zealand. After 25 years of activity, it published the History of the Stamps of New Zealand, and to commemorate its golden jubilee, it produced the first volume of The Postage Stamps of New Zealand. Since then two further volumes and a monograph on the 1d. Universal have been published. Volume IV of the main series is expected to be released in 1964, to be followed by a volume covering the philatelic history of New Zealand's outlying islands, its trust territory, and Antarctica.

New Zealand is well served with stamp catalogues published in this country. The following firms have been responsible for catalogues of a high standard: Campbell Paterson Ltd., and Pim and Co., both of Auckland; and the Stirling Stamp Co., and Verne Collins and Co. Ltd., both of Christchurch.

by Arthur Stanley Helm, M.B.E., M.A., Investigating Officer, Tourist and Publicity Department, Wellington and Campbell Walter Watts, Secretary, Royal Philatelic Society of New Zealand, Wellington.

A New Zealand Post Office employee, R. J. Dickie, was the inventor of the stamp-selling machine. Stamps were inserted into the machine in a roll and were delivered singly through an aperture, following the insertion of a penny in a slot. In partnership with J. H. Brown, a photographer, Dickie produced a machine which began its first public trial on 15 June 1905. Improvements were gradually made and in 1909 the first permanent installation took place. The machine was patented throughout the world and today improved designs are in service in most countries. The first machine in Britain was installed in the House of Commons in 1907.