RESEARCH SUCCESS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 269, 28 October 1932, Page 10

RESEARCH SUCCESS

THE COST AND THE VALUE.

Under the heading of “Cure for Bush Sickness,’’ “V.S.M.” writes in “The Bulletin” (Sydney)Sheep and cattle dying of starvation while up to their knees in succulent grasses and clover—this was the theme of a par. of mine which ‘The Bulletin’ published ten years ago. To-day in that ‘bush-sick’ district, which embraces about a million acres in Rotorua (M.L.), the pastures are eaten down to the ground, and stock are flourishing. “Nature had the remedy waiting to be discovered, and B. C. Aston, chief chemist of the Department of Agriculture, has found it. The elixir is a local iron ore, a" hydrated oxide known as limonite, which is much more soluble in acids than the non-hydrated red oxide, haematite. It occurs in inexhaustible quantities at Whangarel and Onekaka, and is soft and easily ground. Mixed with an equal quantity of salt and used as a lick, it is readily eaten by both sheep and cattle—horses, curiously enough, are not affected by the sickness. “All doubts as to the efficacy of the remedy have been dispelled by practical tests by farmers who have bred and reared healthy stock where formerly animals commenced wasting after a few months or even weeks, and they stay healthy, too. Whether bush-sickness is caused by some deleterious substances ejected by-the volcanoes which have showered ashes upon the land during eruptions, or by the lack of some essential in the plantfood, can now remain for scientists to argue over. What concerns the settier is that limonite corrects the trouble. The value of this discovery is greater than Aston’s salary for his whole working life.”