An Imperial Nursery

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 221, 14 June 1930, Page 19

An Imperial Nursery

( I REAT as has been the expansion in our colonies since the t pioneer days of forty years ago, when Kew may be said to I <■ have been the Father of Botanical Enterprise, in its widest sense, in our colonies, I feel we are only now at the beginning of scientific developments, which will need more and more men. furnished with the best brains which this country and our Empire can produce,” says Dr. R. W. Hill, C.M.G., F.R.S., Director of Botanic Gardens, Kew, in an address reported in the “Journal of the Royal Society of Arts.” “The vistas in scientific and industrial research which are opening out as we examine and perceive the vast picture displayed by our tropical possessions are wide and long. We need many more men for the study of pure and applied botany, In the domains of taxonomy, ecology, and for the investigation of plants yielding economic products; since success in these directions depends entirely on our expert knowledge of the components of the vegetation of a region, and of the physiological or other varietal forms of the plants which yield products of economic value. “Then, again, in the field of Genetics, how much requires to be solved aud how inadequate at present are our means of supplying the men capable

of undertaking the many long-range problems in genetical research which aWait investigation? “I need only instance such staple products as coffee, in East Africa especially; cacao in West Africa, Trinidad, and Ceylon; cereals in Kenya; cotton in the Sudan, India, and the West Indies; coconuts; oil palms in West Africa; and tung oil, which will soon be coming to the fore, and will, It seems likely, offer problems of a similar order to those which are confronting the tea, rubber, and coconut industries in the East at the present time. “Kew is the acknowledged reference centre for the Empire in these matters,” says Dr. Hill, in pleading for an adequate staff of professors and lecturers. “Kew, therefore, should be able to undertake taxonomic research without any delay on every botanical matter submitted from any part of the Empire, and ensure, for example, that no errors are committed through the attempted exploitation of some valueless plant, or that suspected poisonous plants are correctly identified, or, again, that noxious weeds as in the case of Australia or New Zealand—are accurately identified before any attempt is made to bring about their destruction by entomological control,’’,