RETURN OF N.Z. SCIENTIST

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25389, 12 January 1948, Page 8

RETURN OF N.Z. SCIENTIST

RESEARCH IN ANIMAL BREEDING DR. H. P. DONALD’S WORK AT EDINBURGH Dr. H. P. Donald, Edinburgh, a member of the Agricultural Research Council, arrived in Christchurch on Saturday. He is a son of Mrs Donald and the late Mr H. P. Donald, of Papanui, Christchurch, and .has spent 14 years in Britain. Dr. Donald, who has had a brilliant scientific career, graduated in science at Canterbury University College and then took the degree of master of agricultural science at Canterbury Agricultural College, Lincoln. He wfis on the staff of Lincoln for a time,* and in 1934 went to the United Kingdom where he studied at the Edinburgh University. In 1938 Dr. Donald was awarded the degree of doctor of science at Edinburgh and was appointed to the staff of the university in the Institute of Animal Genetics, with research and teaching duties in livestock breeding. Dr. Donald, in an interview yesterday, said that because of the costly and long-term nature of animal breeding research, it had been found advisable in Great Britain to concentrate most of the research in this field into one organisation, financed by the Agricultural Research Council. He had been a member of this council for the last six months. This was a broadly conceived organisation which intended carrying out both fundamental and applied genetical research. His job was to initiate and develop long term breeding research with livestock.

“We in Great Britain are very conscious of the splendid efforts made by New Zealand agriculture in supplying us with food, especially since the beginning of the war,” he said. “We are also conscious that the New Zealand agricultural industry is served by a body of scientists and research workers of great enthusiasm and international reputation.

“It is natural that the Agricultural Research Council should adopt the view that I should have the advantage of first-hand information about the research work going on in New Zealand,” said Dr. Donald. “I expect to be in New Zealand for about two months, during which time I hope to visit all centres concerned with livestock research and to meet all the research workers there, as well as many farmers and breeders.”