AGRICULTURE AND SCIENCE

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24711, 31 October 1945, Page 5

AGRICULTURE AND SCIENCE

—♦ —- CAWTHRON INSTITUTE'S CONTRIBUTION (P.A.) October 30: Through its own researches and the wide influence it had exerted, it could be claimed that the Cawthron Institute had made an important contribution to scientific knowledge and agriculture, said the Director of the Institute. Sir Theodore Rigg, when he delivered the annual Cawthron lecture. The subject was the contributions of the Cawthron Institute to science .and New Zealand agriculture. * Among the more outstanding contributions of the institute were the establishment and development of soil surveys in association with the Department of Scientific 'and Industrial "Research, the elucidation of soil deficiency problems, particularly those . connected with boron, cobalt, and magnesium deficiencies, the. manuring of fruit, tomatoes, pasture, and other crops, and the control of obscure phy-. siological diseases of apples in cool store. Of equal importance were the parasitic control of woolly aphis, golden oak scale, and the horntail borer, the biological control of gorse seed and St. John's wort, studies of the life history of both insect pests and fungus diseases, ■ and researches which had been carried out concerning tobacco diseases, black spot in t apples, brown rot in stone fruit, and mildew and "cloud" in tomatoes. .Results of great value to New Zealand agriculture had been obtained in several cases, and data resulting from the investigtions formed an important contribution to world knowledge of those subjects.