The Royal New Zealand Aero Club was formed in 1930 under the presidency of Sir Francis Boyes. The club affiliated with the Royal Aero Club of England and the FIA (Fédration Internationale Aéronautique). The RNZAC, therefore, has a longer history than any other aviation organisation, and preceded even the RNZAF.

At present there are 40 affiliated aero clubs providing basic flying training within reach of any centre of population. The clubs helped considerably with pilots and training machines at the outbreak of the Second World War. The City of Wellington Squadron, which consisted almost entirely of club-trained pilots, earned some 57 decorations during the war. Immediately after the war clubs continued the initial training of pilots for defence. This was discontinued in the 1950s. The Government then granted a pilots' training subsidy until 1961. The affiliated clubs are now the only means of entering upon an aviation career. Many pilots trained today progress to the Aviation Industry Association, topdressing, and other types of air work. A large proportion of airline pilots in New Zealand are club trained.

Clubs are now equipped with costly modern aircraft mainly of American origin. Nearly all club aircraft are also equipped with radio. Affiliated clubs of the RNZAC employ more than a hundred people as instructors, ground engineers, and clerical staff. In the year ended 31 March 1964, 57,450 hours were flown; there were 4,900 flying members of clubs, with 1,269 pupils under training and, within the structure of the RNZAC, there were 1,676 licensed private pilots and three commercial pilot schools. The RNZAC works closely with all other aviation interests, especially Royal New Zealand Air Force and the various sections of the Department of Civil Aviation.

A RNZAC Pageant is held each year in different parts of New Zealand. There are competitions for a series of trophies, and these, after preliminary elimination contests in the provinces, are keenly contested on each occasion.

Aerial topdressing has been the key to an increase in the productivity of our hill country. Without its development large areas of hill land would no doubt have gone out of production and many farms would have become uneconomic units. The full utilisation of greater soil fertility, however, demands changes in farm management such as closer subdivision, heavier and more carefully controlled stocking, and, in some cases, larger areas of supplementary crops and hay to feed the greater number of sheep and cattle during periods of feed shortage. Better provision of drinking water, more access tracks, closer shepherding, but more worries about diseases in stock, such as seasonal hypomagnesaemia in cattle (grass staggers) and pregnancy toxaemia in ewes, are also an inevitable adjunct of higher productivity.

Aerial topdressing has greatly stimulated investment on hill-country farms. It also demands greater managerial skill from the farmer. In all, it has become one of the most important and most beneficial features of our farming industry and one without which we could not progress at the rate needed.

by Cornelius During, B.AGR.SC., formerly Farm Advisory Service, Department of Agriculture, Wellington.

• For further information, see N.Z. Civil Aviation Statistics, 1 Apr 1964.

In 1945 a committee of the Department of Agriculture estimated that the probable cost of aerial topdressing alone would be about £4 per ton of fertiliser (on a basis of 2 cwt per acre). Prices charged in the early 1950s were slightly lower than this estimate. Even 10 years later, and in spite of increases in the cost of all essential components, topdressing charges have not increased. The following factors are responsible for this stability during a period when most other services were forced to increase their charges:

1. A greater number of farm airstrips has reduced the distance between airstrip and target. There are now about 10,000 privately owned airstrips.

2. A steady improvement in the quality of the airstrips themselves has led to increases in payloads, less wear and tear of aircraft, and greater safety.

3. New and more efficient aircraft have been introduced.

4. The methods of the mechanical handling of fertilisers have been improved. Fertilisers supplied in bags have been replaced in many instances by fertilisers supplied in bulk, with a speeding up of handling.

5. Fertiliser bulk stores at frequent intervals along railway lines have been constructed, allowing quicker delivery at short call. This development is mainly confined to the North Island.

6. More specialised training programmes have increased the efficiency of pilots. Many of these factors have contributed to a substantial increase in the fertiliser spread per flying hour. A mean of 2·8 tons per flying hour was spread in 1951; in 1958 it was 6·5 tons, and by 1962 it rose to 7·9 tons.

Overall efficiency of the aerial topdressing industry could be further increased by a more evenly distributed demand for aerial topdressing throughout the year. In the years 1960–62 nearly 50 per cent of all fertilisers supplied were spread during four months of the year, from February to May inclusive. In many cases, however, autumn topdressing may not possess marked advantages over topdressing at other times of the year.

It seems that the idea of aerial topdressing goes back at least to 1926. In that year J. Lambert suggested that aerial topdressing of hill land might be worth trying, but his suggestion was rejected as impracticable. That this method of topdressing might be feasible was shown in 1936 by a farmer in Hawke's Bay. He used a light aircraft to oversow clover seed. In 1938 A. Pritchard, then a pilot in the Public Works Department, experimented with sowing lupin seed by air on coastal sand country. A year later fertiliser dropping was tested: the war halted further progress.

After the war the cooperation of the Royal New Zealand Air Force and the Department of Agriculture led to measurements of the distribution pattern of granulated superphosphate spread by air. The results of these tests were quite encouraging. In 1949 a private firm began experimenting with aerial topdressing. Since then expansion has been rapid. The reasons can be enumerated as follows:

1. Good prices for wool and meat during and after the war have given the farmer the necessary money.

2. The war left a surplus of small training aircraft which could be adapted cheaply to carry fertilisers.

3. The war had created the skilled pilots needed for this work.

4. The low costs and high speed of spreading fertilisers by air were quickly recognised.

5. The simultaneous introduction of clovers into deteriorated pastures by surface seeding proved successful. This made possible the full utilisation of applied fertilisers.

This expansion of aerial topdressing is illustrated in the following table:

For the year ending 31 March 1964, aircraft distributed 746,795 tons of fertiliser and lime on New Zealand pastures, or 22 per cent more than in 1962–63. More than half this total (404,958 tons) was dropped in the Auckland area. Altogether, the North Island accounted for 650,358 tons and the South Island for 96,437.

Aircraft now help agriculture in many ways other than in spreading fertilisers. Each year poison baits for rabbits are spread on 80,000–100,000 acres, clover seed is sown, fencing materials are delivered to inaccessible places, and spraying is carried out with insecticides, fungicides, and weedkillers.

New Zealand has 43 million acres of farm land of which fully two-thirds are too steep for the use of tractor-drawn implements. These steep and hilly areas can be divided into three main types of vegetation. Sown pasture covers 11 million acres, mainly in the North Island, while 12 million acres are predominantly tussock, mainly in the South Island. Finally, scrub and weeds grow on about 5 million acres.

Until aerial topdressing gained momentum, the mineral fertility of the soils on these large areas had been slowly declining. On most of the 11 million acres of sown hill pasture this meant increasingly less productive swards, difficulties in maintaining the carrying capacity of sheep and cattle, a decline in weights of wool and in receipts from store stock, and less money for repairing and renewing fences and buildings. A thinning of pastures, which allowed the ingress of useless scrub, was often the final result of this deterioration of soil fertility.

A different spiral of decline has been emerging on the 12 million acres of tussock lands in the South Island where the native vegetation developed without grazing animals. When sheep (and rabbits) were introduced, the more palatable species were slowly eaten out. The less palatable species which remained had to be burned periodically so that the sheep could eat the young regrowth. Where the climate has been not too cold and soil moisture retentive, browntop (Agrostis tenuis) and other exotic grasses, as well as weeds, have slowly replaced the native tussock grasses. In the drier districts, however, colonisation with weeds and weed grasses has been slow or non-existent. In these dry areas the disappearance and weakening of tussock by grazing and fire has often been followed by soil erosion.

Finally, there are the 5 million acres of hilly scrub lands which for the most part represent a failure to maintain sown pasture. They cannot be reclaimed without the generous use of phosphatic fertilisers. To change the fate of our hill country from one of decline to one of improving productivity, a higher level of mineral fertility was sorely needed. Superphosphate was the fertiliser required and, at times, molybdenum and extra sulphur.

Labour, however, was not available to apply these fertilisers by hand during the period of full employment after the war. Moreover, it was slow and expensive to spread fertilisers by hand on steep and inaccessible hill country. Blowers operating from bulldozed tracks were used for a while by some farmers, but the gross unevenness of distribution of superphosphate by these means proved unsatisfactory and only small areas could be covered.

As in other countries, the quality of the advertising in New Zealand ranges from the crude, meretricious, and vulgar to productions that can hold their own with the best in the world. The country contains a few first-rate commercial artists and writers and a rather larger number of thoroughly competent ones. American advertising–both good and bad–sets the standard and strongly influences those people directly involved in producing advertising for all media.

Finally, although there is not space here to develop the subject, it may be worth while pointing out that the money spent on advertising not only maintains the artists, writers, and other specialist staffs of advertising agencies and makes low-priced newspapers and periodicals possible, but also keeps in existence large numbers of printers, plate and blockmakers, photographers, film and recording companies, and even the commercial radio and television services.

by John Eliot Blennerhassett, Advertising Executive, Wellington.

The bulk of advertising expenditure went for many years to the daily press. Without receipts from advertising, the newspapers as we know them could not survive, nor could the magazines and other periodicals which are playing an increasingly influential role on the New Zealand publishing scene.

For the past quarter century, however, radio advertising has been making substantial inroads into allocations available for advertising, and the advent of television has both complicated the situation and intensified competition for the advertising pound. Most New Zealand advertisers are handicapped by the smallness of the market and do not have sufficient money available to use all three of the major media to the extent needed for adequate results. They must, too, on the advice of their advertising agency, make adequate allocations for all the other devices necessary for sales promotion, including salesmen's literature, pamphlets, posters, various kinds of point-of-sale material, screen slides, hoardings, and suchlike. Again, because of the smallness of the country, little money is available for research, and decisions have to be based on past experience and guesswork rather than on specific information. Although enormous sums are spent overseas on research there is no really convincing evidence that without it New Zealand advertisers are any worse off than their British or American counterparts. It appears to be an extremely useful but not infallible guide.

In the past advertising agencies were concerned with selling space for newspapers. Modern agencies, however, have no direct connection with any specific publication and are in fact, if not in theory, much more closely connected with the clients for whom they prepare advertisements. But agencies still rely for income on commissions allowed them on space bought by them in newspapers and periodicals on behalf of clients. It is not open to anyone who thinks himself capable of carrying on the business of advertising to set up an agency and automatically draw commission for space bought. He must be accredited by the Newspaper Proprietors' Association of New Zealand. Accreditation which, if granted, must be renewed annually, carries with it a number of obligations, the most important from the public's point of view being to ensure that every advertisement issued by him shall be clean, honest, and truthful, and in compliance with the statutes of New Zealand. Secondly, that an agent shall not submit any advertisement which, either by direct statement or by innuendo, disparages any competitor of the advertiser or the goods or services sold by any competitor of the advertiser. The Newspaper Proprietors' Association can and occasionally does refuse advertisements which, in its opinion, infringes these regulations.

While the first obligation deserves to be commended, it is questionable whether the second is, or ever can be, observed. Every advertisement which contains claims of superiority must to some extent disparage all other products of a similar type. It is debatable whether such disparagement should not be allowed provided the claims are true, but modern advertising, like politics, is more temperate than it was formerly. Over and above the control exercised by the Newspaper Proprietors' Association, regulation of the content of advertising prepared by agencies (but not by retailers and local dealers) is carried even further by the Association of New Zealand Advertising Agencies, to which all but one or two of the 30-odd agencies in the country belong. No member shall prepare or handle advertising containing or including, amongst other things, false statements or misleading exaggeration or distortions of detail; unwarranted claims which directly or indirectly disparage competition; claims as to price which are misleading; scientific or technical claims not adequately supported by accepted authority, and fake testimonials. These counsels of perfection are not always followed to the letter, but the general standard of advertising prepared by agencies is remarkably high and the association does take its members to task for infringements.

Advertising in certain fields is also rigorously controlled by statute. The Medical Advertisements Act, policed by the Health Department, and the Pure Food and Drugs Act are generally successful in restricting false claims. Even more rigorous, the Stock Remedies Act requires approval before an advertisement can be printed. The Trading Coupons Act, the Gaming Act, and the Companies Act also play their part in maintaining a high standard of advertising in New Zealand. The latest in the list of organisations which act as watchdogs over advertising has been the Government-subsidised Consumer Council . Primarily concerned with testing goods offered for sale, it also comments on advertising claims. Unfortunately it tends to represent what, for want of a better term, must be called the “intellectual' section of the community, emotionally antagonistic to all forms of advertising, however good.

As in all countries where advertising has developed as an essential technique in the distribution of mass produced goods, in New Zealand it was regarded by most early practitioners merely as a vehicle for puffing their own wares and attacking rival products without much concern for truth or taste. These dubious practices have affected the prestige of advertisers and advertising even up to the present day, and the fact that most laymen remain ignorant of the great advances in standards, efficiency, and honesty must to a great extent be blamed on the failure of organised advertising either to publicise its impressive progress or to make available the data on which a more favourable estimation might be based. In the last few years some effort has been made by the Association of New Zealand Advertising Agencies to acquaint the public with the benefits of advertising, but their own operations are seldom discussed. This is in sharp contrast to the American scene where agencies and advertisers freely supply data on the amount of money being spent each year on particular products, the volume of sales that results, the salary scales of the people employed in the advertising industry, and so on. The inaccessibility of specific information concerning the New Zealand advertising scene makes discussion on anything but the mechanical organisation and the visible results of the industry extremely difficult. The great bulk of advertising in New Zealand is prepared either by advertising agencies or by the advertising departments of retail stores.

The practice of adoption has been recognised in most communities, but its objects have differed widely. It was common in Maori society but took place only between members of related groups and to keep alive family connections, principally for purposes of war and inheritance. In New Zealand and in most other countries today, the main objects of adoption are to give family life to a child without parents or whose parents cannot or will not care for it, and to give a child to a couple without children or with fewer children than they want and can care for. Adoption is also a means of legitimating a child whose parents have not married.

Adoption is so widespread a custom that informal adoptions doubtless occurred among the earlier European settlers in New Zealand. For many years, however, the law paid exaggerated deference to abstract parental rights and denied all legal effect to adoptions except where Maori custom was applicable. The first Adoption Act was passed in 1881. Based on Massachusetts legislation of 1851, this Act was the first legal recognition given to adoption in a common law British country. It was copied in some Australian colonies, and the success of adoption in New Zealand influenced its eventual introduction in England in 1926. Modified and extended from time to time, the adoption legislation was rewritten in 1955.

It took some time for adoption to become popular among Europeans. There were, for example, only 75 legal adoptions between 1897 and 1907. Adoptions increased after 1914, reached 400 a year in the late twenties, and have exceeded 1,000 a year since 1945. In 1963 adoptions totalled 2,843, three times as many proportionately as in the United Kingdom.

Adoption was effected by an order of a Judge of the Maori Land Court where the adoptive parent was a Maori, and of a Magistrate in all other cases. Since 1963 all adoption orders are made by Magistrates.

Anyone under 21 may be adopted, but most adoptions are of very young children. Sometimes a child is adopted by a married couple, one of whom is the natural parent; thus a man may adopt his wife's child of a former marriage. Children are also adopted by relatives, friends of the family, or foster parents. The typical case, however, is the adoption by a married couple of the illegitimate child of a stranger. A couple wanting to adopt a child will usually make arrangements with a child welfare officer, or with a private organisation or maternity home, or with a private person such as a doctor. In any case a child welfare officer must approve if the child is under 15, except in the rare instance where the Court makes an interim adoption order immediately. Otherwise the adopting parents must apply for an interim order within a month of receiving the child, after which there is usually a trial period of six months. This interim order procedure, introduced in 1955, is a valuable safeguard against unsuitable adoptions.

For many years the legal effects of adoption were limited. The general acceptance of adoption, however, prompted radical changes in 1949. Their result was to absorb the child almost completely into his adoptive family and destroy for almost all legal purposes his relationship with his natural family. To all intents, an adopted child in New Zealand is as fully a member of his new family as if he were born to the adoptive parents in lawful wedlock.

by Bruce James Cameron, B.A., LL.M., Legal Adviser, Department of Justice, Wellington.

• The Law of Adoption in New Zealand, Campbell, J. D. (1957).