FAMOUS ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL SCIENTIST

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVIII, Issue 201, 8 August 1928, Page 8

FAMOUS ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL SCIENTIST

SIR JOHN RUSSELL IN AUCKLAND VISITS ROTORUA’S PUMICE AREAS. HAWKE’S BAY LEFT OUT. It is distinctly unfortunate that when an eminent agricultural and soil scientist, such as Sir John Russell, is able to come all the way from England to New Zealand, he should be practically monopolised by the cities, where, at best, the interest in farming and in making the sou produce to its utmost, is more academic than practical. Naturally, the demands on the time of such a man as Sir John Russell are many and pressing, but it should have been the business of those in whose hands was placed the organisation of his tour of the Dominion, to see that the two greatest producing provinces in the North Island—Taranaki and Hawke’s Bay—had tHb benefit of what knowledge they could glean from his personal presence in each of these places, if only for long enough to give our leading farmers some glimpse of the possibilities of linking science and practice that doubled yields might be the result,.

A VAST KNOWLEDGE OF GRASS.

Sir John, at the world-famed Rothamsted Research Station, has discovered more about grass and soil and their possibilities than probably any other man in the world to-day. Hawke’s Bay and Taranaki depend almost entirely on their pastures for their vast productivity, the first in wool, lamb and mutton, and the other in butter and cheese. One or two hints from such a man as Sir John Russell on better pasture treatment in either district, might easily have meant a vast increase in our output. However, as is usual in this province at any rate, we must rest content with the crumbs from the cities, for the local branch of the Farmers’ Union have been told that “It is regretted,” etc. ACTIVITIES IN AUCKLAND. Some of the aforementioned “crumbs” come to us in the form of the following report of Sir John Russell’s activities while in Auckland and its environs. Sir John expressde himself as greatly pleased with his reception in Auckland, and impressed with poteneialitites of the surrounding country. He was active up to the last moment, having set out after an early breakfast to inspect the works of the Challenge Phosphate Company at Otahuhu. INSPECTING PUMICE PLAINS. The visitor is being accompanied through the pumice area of the North Island by Mr C. B. Aston, chief chemist to the Agricultural Department. Sir John will leave Wellington on the 18th inst. for England, to prepare for taking up his work as director of the proposed Imperial Soil Institute. A large gathering assembled at the University College Council and the Council of the Auckland Institute and Museum, Sir George Fowlds presided and associated with Turn as speakers were Professor A -P- W. Thomas and Mr Aston.

DEPENDANT ON TRIAL AND ERROR METHOD. In a happy speech the guest of honour said that in travelling through the Empire he had been imSressed by nothing more than by the ominance of university life. In almost every centre the institutions were breaking their old bonds and extending into larger spheres of actvity. Touching on historial aspects of agriculture the speaker said that until recent years it had been dependent on the trial and error method for its progress. HOW “BORDEAUX” WAS DISCOVERED. Sir John explained how potato blight had been introduced into Ireland from South America, and how 40 years had elapsed before a specific was found to prevent the spread of the disease. In the South of France a farmer with some knowledge of chemistry prepared an unpalatable concoction with which to spray his grapes so that small boys would cease stealing them. The concoction not only kept the boys away, but it renders the grapes immune to the effects of blight. Years later someone caught the idea that if it would kill the blight on grapes it might serve equally well for potatoes. That was how the Bordeaux mixture had remedied the trouble of the potato bight. AN ACCIDENTALLY VARIETY FOUNDS CANADIAN WHEAT.

Again, in the year 1816 some Scotch settlers near Winnipeg planted wheat, but on seven successive occasions, it was prevented from maturing by frost, blight, theft, and hail. It was said that the despairing settlers then lifted up their eyes to heaven, and bemoaned their fate. “I hav always thought,’ said Sir John, with a merry twinkle in the direction of the chairman, “that it speaks volumes for their sound Scotch upbringing that they did nothing more.” (Laughter.) In the year 1860 a farmer in the eastern part of Canada, having despaired of producing untainted wheat, wrote to friends in Scotland to send him several varieties. Of them all, only one stem proved to be free from disease. It was multiplied until it came into general use throughout Canada, under the name of Fife wheat. That also was an accident, inasmuch as it was not like the Scotch wheat, and it was believed that a grain of wheal lying in the hold of the steamer, which had probably been carrying wheat from the Baltic, had got mixed up witn the consignment to Canada. THE FARMER—TAKE A BLIND MAN. In more recent years the romantic discoveries made by science had been applied to agriculture, wh results which opened up a wide vista of possibilities. To take the soil alone, the speaker said that if a spoonful of soil were divided into several parts, each part would contain more organisms than there were people in New

Zealand. “It appears to me to be a tragedy,” he added, “that so often the farmer among these wonders sees nothing and knows nothing of them. He is like a blind man standing before a beautiful picture, or a deaf man in a cathedral where a great organ is being played by a master musician.”