HEREDITARY FARM.

Mataura Ensign, 29 September 1913, Page 4

HEREDITARY FARM.

SCIENTISTS AND SEX MYSTERY.

HEN'S COMMERCIAL EGGS.

A combination, of men of scienc- in many branches is to pay a visit to what may be called a heredity farm, near Leicester, where the questions of sex the inheritance of color, and the dominance of certain conflicting parental qualities are visibly illustrated in a most original way (stated 'The Daily Mail' on August 14). the zoologists, the botanists and the agriculturists, each of whom has a separate section at the British, Association, will break their discussion at the annual meeting which begins at Birmingham on Septemebr 10 by a joint visit to this farm, which caters for eacjt £™ l, P- 1" one. part are rows of peas which were the first plants to disclose Mendel's strange law of inheritance. In another a variety of rodents and rabbits with their families can be inspected by those who have views on the inheritance of color. But this is only introductory fco the latest advance. Major Hurst, the founder of the farm, was among the first to discover the working of some of those laws, illustrated on his farm, on human beings. Ho has drawn the neighboring villages into co-operation, so that while the botanists and farmers are inspecting the generations of tall peas and short peas or rust-proof wheats and sparrow-proof barleys, the zoologists will lie able to examine family groups of villagers and to mark whether tallness, as in sweet peas, or "brownness" in eyes are "dominant" over shortness or "blueness."

"Maleness" and " FemaJeness." There is scarcely any department of botany or zoology into which the science of heredity, uniquely displayed on this farm, is not probing". The secret of the inheritance of sex, that is "maleness" and "femaleness," has been more or less certainly detected in the case of certain, insects. Certain eye diseases in men. it k now known, are only handed down to contrary sexes, that is from mother to so nor father to daughter; and they neve?' lie latent in those who do not suffer. Major Hurst, in partnership with another officer, is endeavoring to "create" a new species of horse for the War Office by working on the laws investigated on his farm. Others of his school, of which) the headquarters are at Cambridge University, are trying to induce certain varieties of prolific poultry to lay a brown egg instead, of a white egg. which lias been their uncommercial habit. In regard to people, no definite laws of heredity have hitherto been discovered except in eyes, both as to disease and color, and to some extent in the shape of hands. On the whole subject some fresh light should ho thrown during; the coming meeting of tho British. Association, held under the profcid«icy of Sir Oliver Lodge.