J. R. J. Fleming

John Fleming of Methven died suddenly on October 28^th, 1952, at the age of 39 years. He was educated in Methven, came to Lincoln College in 1932 and spent four years on the Degree course, taking his M.Agr.Sc. with honours. He was a member of the First Fifteen, a good field athlete and a keen supporter of debating activities. For his Masterate thesis he compiled a farm management survey of the Ashburton County, described as the best county farming survey ever completed, and a lasting contribution to New Zealand agricultural economics.

John always made it clear that he was taking a degree course not to become a professional worker, but in order to become a better farmer. He introduced a new idea, in that the degree training, if properly applied and interpreted, fitted a man for farming and certainly for farm leadership.

He returned to his father's farm, part of the original Springfield estate and a property which became widely known as the tidiest and best" kept in the Ashburton County. John was fond of expressing the opinion that it was the farmer's duty to leave the land in better heart than he found it.

He had a strongly independent outlook and the sterling nature of his character endeared him to his fellow farmers, as to his College contemporaries. For several years and at a young age he was on the Provincial Council of Mid-Canterbury Federated Farmers, and was immediate past president of the Methven branch ·at 'the time of his death. He founded the Methven .Young Farmers' Club and was chairman of the Mid-Canterbury district Y.F. committee. He held office on the Board of Managers of the Presbyterian Church, Methven.

John had a great sense of humour and about the loudest laugh which ever rang through the study walls of the old College building. In his recent years he delighted to ring up or call on his former College friends on the staff, and genially to take them to task for an asserted inadequacy in the work they were doing. In all respects the community is poorer for the loss of a man of his calibre, and with the untimely death of John Fleming, farming leadership in New Zealand has lost a bright future servant. He is survived by his wife who lives at 8 Brucefield Avenue, Ashburton.