SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 89, 30 March 1932, Page 9

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

THE CAWTHRON INSTITUTE FINE WORK ACCOMPLISHED. GREAT AID TO PRODUCTION. Much is heard in New Zealand today of scientific research as applied to farming. It has already yielded large returns and the future benefits to b<. expected from it are doubtless much greater than the scientists’ caution allows them to predict. The Dominion is commonly said to have taken up re search rather late. That is not quite correct. Work has been carried on for years by, for example, the Department of Agriculture and the Lincoln Agricultural College, but it is only within the last 15 years or so that Parliament and the public have really awakened to what science can do for industry. This conversion was hastened by the creation of the Cawthorn Institute at Nelson toward the end of the Great War—the first organisation set up and endowed in New Zealand purely for research. Mr Thomas Clawthorn, who died in 1915, left a will, dated 1902, in which he bequeathed the residue of his estate, about £240,000, to trustees, “for the purchase of land and erection and maintenance of an industrial and technical school institute and museum to be called the Cawthorn Institute.”

A SOUND POLICY. This form of words left the trustees much scope in deciding the nature of the proposed “institute.” They accordingly set up a widely representative committee of scientists and educationists to consider and suggest a policy. As a result, it was decided that the institute should be a foundation for research into problems affecting the land and primary industry. Dr T. H. Eas terfield, then professor of chemistry at Victoria University College, and a member of the advisory committee, was appointed director. No attempt was made to put up pretentious buildings, but a highly qualified scientific staff was collected and work was begun upon a number of problems affecting primary industry in the Nelson district.

The three main divisions of tho institute’s work for the past dozen years have been agricultural chemistry, entomology and mycology, or the study of fungoid diseases of plants. In all of these it has done most valuable service, not only to its immediate neighbourhood, hut to the Dominion in general. Considering the limited resources available in men and money, the number and variety of researches so far carried out are really matters for wonder.

TWO FINE ACHIEVEMENTS. With so many problems urgently needing solution, there has been little time for research in the field of “pure” science. Many questions of great theoretical interest have been raised incidentally and have been reluctantly set aside. They may be taken up again some day, but in the meantime work of immediate practical value has first place.

The institute has two most spectacular discoveries to its credit—the finding of a natural enemy of the woolly aphis and the working out of a means for utilising the 200,000 acres of infertile “pakihi” lands in the Westport and Nelson districts.

The woolly aphis discovery is now rather ancie.lt history, as it was made in the institute’s early years. As the result of close study and much inquiry abroad by Dr R. J. Tillyard, chief entomologist, a minute wasp, scarcely larger than a pin’s head, was imported tested and liberated. So implacable an enemy has it proved that the woolly aphis has almost wholly disappeared from New Zealand orchards.

WASTE LANDS UTILISED. The pakihi land research is more recent; indeed,it was formally concluded only a few months ago. A more startling demonstration of applied science would be hard to imagine. The lands in question consist for the most part of level or gently sloping terraces, swampy in wet weather and covered with dwarf fern, rushes and a few other plants of little fodder value. The soil is a fine loam, lying upon a coarse deposit of boulders, and is said to be an old marine deposit. Until the . Cawthron Institute took the matter up pakihi land had defied all efforts to convert it into pasture. Experiments had been made with explosives, in the hope of breaking up the “pan,” but without success. About 1926 the Buller County Council and the Westport Borough Council initiated annual grants to the institute for a special investigation, and the work was also subsidised by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.

Professor and Mr, T. Rigg, chief agricultural chemist, after a series of laboratory and practical tests, found that a very simple and cheap procedure, without the use of the plough and costing only about £6 an acre, would establish excellent, pasture in little more than a year.

GREAT SCOPE FOR DAIRYING. They first burned off the existing vegetation in mid-summer, then broadcast one ton of ground limestone per acre, and harrowed it in lightly. They next broadcast scwt. of basic slag and superphosphate per acre, and sowed a suitable mixture of grasses and clovers earlv in March.

The limestone, it was found, altered the nature of the soil so as to let the water drain away, and the land, wherever treated, lost its swampy character. Two hundredweight .of superphosphate per acre vearly was sufficient to maintain excellent dairy pasture, and in mid-summer two cows to the acre were carried with ease.

As the pakihi lands are level and otherwise well fitted for settlement, it is expected that they will play an important part in the development of dairying in the South Island within ‘he next 10 rears.

The Cawthrnp Institute’s other researches, hoth convicted nnd in progress, are too numerous for, more then n few to be mentioned. By eo-opcra-tion with the British Government’s entomological station at Farnham Royal, the present chief entomologist, Dr. T> Miller, has been able to import nafnnil enemies of a number of plutils ami

insect pests. One insect gives promise of much help in checking ragwort. INSECTS FROM CHILE. Dr. Miller had some remarkable experiences in Southern Chile while searching for an insect which preys upon a cousin of the piripiri burr in that country. He obtained specimens, and there is every hope that this plant, which causes a heavy annual loss to woolgrowers, will be kept in check. The mycological department, under Dr. Kathleen Curtis, has given invalu able service to New Zealand orchard ists, and has enough work on hand to occupy a good many years. A comprehensive investigation of the mineral content of pastures, under the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, is being carried on by Mr. Rig!.’ and Dr. H. O. Askew. The institute is also co-operating in a reconnaissance survey of the soils of the central North Island territory, with special reference to the various volcanic “showers.” Research in the cold storage of fruit is being conducted by arrangement with the Empire Marketing Board. Tn all its different, forms the work of the Cawthron Institute is of primary importance. With the other research agencies now operating, it will undoubtedly do much to bring back more prosperous times by increasing the efficiency of farm production.