The Evening Star THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1928. AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH.

Evening Star, Issue 20054, 20 December 1928, Page 6

The Evening Star THURSDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1928. AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH.

SciJi.vmic research raay take ninny directions. The very latest, according to a cable from London, is the proposed expenditure of £4,000 a year by British golf clubs to set up a board of research on greenkeeping problems. Doubtless they are many, even in England, where the turf is unequalled anywhere in the world. The humble earth-worm has an unpleasant habit of making his presence known and felt at certain times of the year. The übiquitous daisy calls for drastic treatment with sulphate of ammonia. Some hypercritical supervisors even object to the presence of clover. A few greenkeepers become eloquent on the subject of square-headed nails shed from golfers’ boots disorganising the internals of expensive mowing machines. Most of these and kindred problems could be solved easily and inexpensively by making the hole somewhat larger in diameter than 4-Jin; but the advocacy of a bin tin, by Mr Harold Hilton and others, has found no favour with so conservative a body as the Rules of Golf Committee at St. Andrews. So the matter is to be tackled scientifically, and the co-operation of the Ministry of Agriculture, the agricultural colleges, and the Rothamsted Experimental Station is to be forthcoming for the research board which the golf clubs will combine to .establish.

The matter might seem trivial were it not construed as a sign of the times. /Research is a word now often on the lips of politicians and economists. Throughout the Empire various Governments have taken the matter up as a State obligation. At this moment tiie British Government lias under consideration the proposals just placed before it by those whom the Imperial Agricultural Research Conference of 1927 deputed to frame a, policy. The establishment of eight new bureaux or clearing houses of information is recommended, each to deal with a separate branch of agricultural science, and all to be financed from a common fund formed by contributions from the different Governments. Various bureaux are to be attached to the existing research institutes, the governing bodies of which have already accepted the general principle of the proposal. They would deal with such matters aa soil science, animal nutrition and health, animal genetics, agricultural parasitology, plant genetics of crops and herbage, plants, and plant production. The example of the United States is being followed fairly closely in these recommendations. Last year the United States Government appropriated over £1,000,000 for the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. The Purnell Act of 1926, under which this appropriation was authorised, particularly emphasises those economic and sociological investigations which have for their purpose the development and improvement of rural life. It recognises the fact that the building of a rural civilisation cannot be dissociated from the building of an agricultural industry. This research movement in America is partly the response to an insistent cry for some entirely different form of farm relief. World-wide experience has shown that the State as a factor in organisation of the kind asked is a hopeless failure. The M l Nary-Haugon legislation contained the proposals for this State organisation of agriculture. Three times has it passed Congress, and three times has the President of the United States vetoed it. It is a fact that nearly every economist of standing in America has condemned the M‘NaryHaugen scheme of farm relief; it is even understood that its sponsors would have been terrified had it survived the President’s veto. Its weaknesses have been defined as its vagueness, its success being dependent on speculation by amateurs, its involving compulsory pooling, its making industry dependent on permanent artificial aid, its fallacious provision of “ orderly marketing,” its liability to cause over-production, aiid its dependence on arbitrary price-fixing. The State, however, did not disclaim all responsibility in the matter of farm relief. It has been the experience of America that the only form of State activity which has boon unquestionably effective and has been an unalloyed benefit to the producer has been the educational work of the State agricul-

tural departments. Therefore America has set a strong pace in agricultural scientific research, and the various parts of the British Empire are rapidly following suit. Australia is now the only important agricultural country in the world in which no Department of Agriculture or university has an organised division of agricultural economics. Yet other bodies have been doing very valuable work of this kind in the Commonwealth. Queensland's Prickly Pear Land Commission, which has jurisdiction over an area of 100,000 square miles of pearinfested country, lias achieved in the four years of its existence all that it set itself out to do and a bit more. The spread of pear, except in the cattle-grazing country in the northern part of the area, whore heavy expenditure on clearing is not justifiable, has been definitely stopped, and there is considerably less pear in Queensland today than when the Commission took office. The great majority of freeholders and leaseholders have co-operated with the Commission, assisted by the fact that the Commission buys poisons at half the prices ruling before it came into existence, and sells these and the apparatus with which they are applied at well below cost. The poisons usedarsenate pentoxido lor young pear growth and a proprietary chemical for old and dense growths—have proved extremely efficient. The most interesting part of the Commission’s war against the pest is the biological offensive. Such spectacular results have been attained that landholders are clamouring to be supplied with insects instead of poisons, the insects being very much cheaper, and, so far as present experience teaches, much more deadly to the pear. The Commission has a very good reason for its refusal to allow the general use of insects outside its own supervision.

New Zealand, whoso farm economics branch under the Department of Agriculture was established in 1926, has a somewhat parallel problem in tho shape of tho blackberry pest. Though official announcements have recently been made in the 1 Now Zealand Journal of Agriculture ’ on insect parasite control of bidi-bidi, on tho pear-midge parasite, on the sheep maggot-fly parasite, on tho gum-tree weevil parasite, and on tho grass-grub parasite, not much has been divulged as to the progress of the experiments with a parasite to control blackberry. But if rumour speaks truly there are grounds for confidence iu success being within reach not only for tho eradication of the blackberry, but also of gorse, on which a destructive parasite is now at work under close observation on a limited scale and with adequate safeguards. The systematic encouragement of research will probably stand out as one of the wisest steps initiated by the Coates Government. At present there are now at work in New Zealand an agronomist and three other highly qualified officers. A fair amount of the work so far has been educative and propagandist, as well as purely scientific. It would be of little use 1.0 make discoveries of economic value unless the farmers as a whole could be persuaded to recognise their value and adopt the measures and methods recommended. The four research officers have been mixing intimately with the farming community, and have succeeded iu gaining widespread confidence and support. In such a matter as the grade and purity and diseaseresisting power of seed it is also necessary to secure the co-operation of the merchants, so that there shall be no doubt as to the inducement of better prices to the farmer for the superior products the research officers guarantee. It is gratifying to state that merchants generally are whole-heartedly co-operating with tho Research Department. The “tags” which the latter supply as certificates of quality have already commercial acceptance in a way most beneficial to the progressive farmer. The scheme has not long been in existence, but it has been launched on most practical lines by men of admittedly high scientific status. it should not be long before results force themselves on the notice of a wider public than the comparatively small circle who are so far an fait with what is being done.