The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 3, Issue 9 (January 1, 1929)
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An example of effective modern publicity work is seen in the pamphlet “Top Dress for Top Values” recently issued by the New Zealand Railways to the farming community. The following appreciative review is reproduced from the “Evening Post,” Wellington.
As the Department of Railways has a chief who was first a railwayman, then a dairying director, and again a railwayman, it is perhaps not surprising that the Department is issuing some publicity to reinforce the propagandist efforts of a sister Department in favour of grass-land farming in general and of top-dressing in particular. In 1927–28 nearly 50,000 cows were added to the dairying industry—an achievement rendered possible only by the new grass-land farming, as explained in the “Evening Post's” Manawatu Show Supplement — and there is nothing like a practical association with dairying to make a business man realise how much latent spring resides in that industry. Its expansion in the next few years—and, of course, the progress of sheep farming, etc. — is the chief hope of redressing the evils of excessive mortgage. “If your farm has too much top-hamper of mortgage, a top-dressing of the soil will lighten the load,” says the Department's latest pamphlet.