THE NEED FOR RESEARCH.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 276, 22 November 1927, Page 6

THE NEED FOR RESEARCH.

The retirement of Dr. Tillyard from his position as Director of the Cawthron Institute is a distinct and serious loss to New Zealand. Apart from his other official duties, he has been engaged for some time past in investigating insect and weed pests in the Dominion, and devising ways and means to combat their ravages, and it is difficult, to over-estimate the value of the services that the scientific expert can render in these directions. It is some consolation to know that Dr. Tillyard is to continue his research work here on the blackberry pest, visiting New Zealand once a year for the

purpose.

In an interview which appeared in our issue of yesterday, Dr. Tillyard gave our readers some idea of the colossal tasks by which scientific research is confronted in Australia. It is estimated that the Commonwealth suffers a loss of anything from £10,000,000 to £20,000,000 a year from the depredations elf insect and weed pests. Evidently there is virtually unlimited scope for scientific experts of the relatively small class to which Dr. Tillyard belongs. But it may be permitted to the layman to express the hope that in their natural enthusiasm for victory in the contest with such dangerous enemies the experts will not take the serious risk of introducing foreign forms of insect life or vegetation which, profiting by their changed circumstances, may develop new and unsuspected powers of endurance and productivity, and in time become dangerous pests themselves, needing in turn special effort for their extirpation.