AID OF SCIENCE

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 28, 27 October 1932, Page 8

AID OF SCIENCE

Service to Husbandry WEALTH FROM SOIL His Excellency’s Review “In no field of human activity is the economic value of agricultural science so grudgingly acknowledged as in that of husbandry, and yet in none has it been more abundant or more easy to demonstrate to those who have but the vision to realise the truth,” said his Excellency the Governor-General, Lord Bledisloe, last evening, In the course of an address to the Wellington Philosophical Society on “The Economic Value of Agricultural Science.” Dr. E. Marsden, secretary to the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, who presided, spoke of the obligation the people of New Zealand were under to his Excellency for his efforts in the promotion of science and art in the Dominion, and for his interest in the problems bf industry and the primary industry in particular. Empirical methods might have sufficed in the past to ensure a livelihood for the farmer of average capacity, said his Excellency. To-day with the demand for higher standards of uniformity and quality, the claim of the worker for a higher scale of living, and the weight of public burdens, nothing but scientific knowledge, or at least improved methods based upon such knowledge, would enable the producer to reduce costs and ensure the absorption of his produce in a crowded world market. It could be prophesied that the victory in the fierce competition between the world’s primary producers would rest ultimately with those countries, peopled by intelligent and energetic races, who recognised the economic value of scientific research and applied its findings to the winning of wealth from the soil. Losses by Pests and Disease. After referring to the Royal Commission on the land damage of England and Wales, which found that at one tdme at least a fifth of the farm land was more or less water-logged, and the scientific use of lime to stimulate beneficial bacterial activity in the soil, his Excellency referred to the Immense losses caused by insect pests. Aat present, he said, the annual losses in the Empire as a whole from this cause equalled one-tentih of the value of the crops attacked. Dr. Cunlngham, mycqlogist at the New Zealand Plant Research Station, placed the annual losses from plant diseases as affecting cereals, potatoes, root crops, fruit trees, etc., in the Dominion at over £2,000,000, without taking into account the consequential reduction of the area underroot crops which were the chief victims. Lord Bledisloe spoke of the help which scientific research had been able to render in discovering a remedy for two of the worst pests of tomatoes and cucumbers, a remedy that had raised the aggregate income of the industry He instanced how the spread of wart disease, or black scab, among potatoes in England by 30 per cent, in two years, was averted by the discovery and breeding of immune varieties. Similar good work had been done in regard to wheat, fruit, cotton and flax. His Excellency further dealt with the science of animal breeding, coupled with improved feeding, which had enabled stock-owners to produce meat of choice quality in less than half the time that their fathers did. Discoveries had also been made in relation to soil deficiencies which were proving of great value, and were enabling reclamation of vast areas formerly deemed unfit for confident and profitable husbandry. Animal Diseases.

Splendid work had been done in the field of veterinary science by the use of inoculated sera for the prevention, immunisation or detection of numerous animal diseases. Glanders among horses had practically disappeared from all civilised countries; rinderpest, which threatened the British cattle industry with bankruptcy 60 years ago, had been unknown there for more than a generation; and preventive inoculation against anthrax in sheep had been successfully established Losses, especially in sheep, from parasites, had been enormously reduced by improved systems of feeding and management. His Excellency also spoke of the value to farmers in recent years of various labour-saving devices, resulting from research in agricultural engineering. Among them were the reaper-and-binder, and modern milking machine, shearing machine, harvesters, etc. Scientific research had also brought untold benefits to fruitgrowers, and meat exporters had profited by what had been achieved by low temperature research workers. The bountiful gifts of Nature were the richest endowment of Nature, concluded Lord Bledisloe. Agriculture science ,vas showing with convincing persuasiveness how those gifts, so far as they were replaceable, might most usefully be perpetuated and employed for man's happiness and profit. “God grant that the world’s statesmen, economists and financiers might solve the man-made problem of the effective distribution and availability of those gifts,” concluded his Excellency, “so that a world of plenty might also become a world of peace.” Dr. C. J. Reakes, Director of Agriculture, expressed the ai>preciation of the members of the society of the value of his Excellency’s address, amid hearty applause.