LACKS CO-ORDINATION

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 124, 29 May 1933, Page 8

LACKS CO-ORDINATION

AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH

The British system of agricultural and horticultural research was criticised for its "lack of co-ordination" by Mr. V. M. F. Drummond, professor of botany at Manchester University,, in a lecture on "The inter-relation of pure and applied biology," delivered at a meeting of the Manchester University Science Federation. He also questioned tho' value of specialised university degrees in such subjects as dairy farming, and suggested that the proper introduction to agricultural research was through a degree in pure science, followed by a practical diploma. Professor Drummond ' referred to tho numerous plant-breeding and research stations which had been established in Great Britain, Scandinavia, and other countries in the' last half-century. The research both in special stations and in agricultural colleges was not, he said, co-ordinated as it might be. There had been a research council, but this had been ineffective except for an interesting exchange of views. "One result of this," he said, "is that all the agricultural colleges carry out certain routine experiments each year, and accumulate an imposing niass of statistics which really have no general value. They do not use the , same plants or the ' same apparatus, and their results cannot be compared." This contrasted unfavourably'with conditions in Denmark, where, largely owing to economic pressure, the fields of research had been carefully planned over the whole country. ,^_