“ McKenzie also founded and expanded an efficient department of agriculture, in the functions of which inspection, grading, teaching and example are successfully combined. It has aided the development of dairying, fruit-growing, poultry-farming, bee-keeping and flax-milling, and done not a little to keep up the standard of New Zealand products. After 1897 McKenzie had to hold on in the face of failing health. ”

“ In 1865 he was clerk to the local road board and school committee; in 1871 he entered the provincial council of Otago; and on the 11th of December 1881 was elected member of the House of Representatives, in which he sat till 1900. He was also for some years a member of the education board and of the land board of Otago, and always showed interest in the national elementary school system. ”