A CHEMIST'S SUCCESS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 21, 25 January 1929, Page 8

A CHEMIST'S SUCCESS

TRIBUTE TO MR. B. C. ASTON

THE BUSH SICKNESS PUZZLE

(By Telegraph.)

(Special to "The Evening Post.")

AUCKLAND, This Day.

A tribute to the work of Mr. B. C. Aston, chemist to the Department of Agriculture, is paid by the "New Zealand Herald" in an editorial comment on his presidential address to the Science Congress on the mineral content of pastures and its relation to animal nutrition.

"Before Mr. Aston attacked the problem," it remarks, "bush sickness was supposed to be a definite if mysterious malady. Ho showed that it was not a sickness but malnutrition, and had no connection with the bush but sprang from a deficiency in the soil, the lack ot soluble iron. The work which Mr. Aston described is perhaps the most significant instance of the application of chemistry to an agricultural problem that New Zealand has witnessed. The results have been noted for application in other countries where similar difficulties exist.. They should be appreciated in the Duminion at their true worth, and Auckland in particular should do all honour to the man of science who has achieved so much towards solving a problem peculiarly of provincial incidence."