RESEARCH AT HOME.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 307, 24 November 1934, Page 9

RESEARCH AT HOME.

MANY FIELDS ENTERED. NEW ZEALANDER IMPRESSED. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Nov. 23. Mr G. Shirtcliffe, chairman of the Research Council, who has just returned from a trip abroad, stated in an interview to-day that he had taken the opportunity of visiting many of the research stations in Great Britain. He acknowledged the great help afforded him by Mr N. L. Wright, whose services to the Dominion as liaison officer between the Research Department in New Zealand and various research activities in Great Britain were most valuable.

He indicated the great strides being made in the utilisation of coal and said the research station under Dr. Sinnatt at Greenwich was fully occupied. There were no loss than 210 workers. Dr. Sinnatt had stated that lie would be most pleased to carry out trials on bulk coals from New Zealand. Mr Appleby, the research manager at the hydrogenation plant _ at Billingliam, said he had over 100 University graduates in the department and about 50 girls and 400 other staff members.

Mr Shirtcliffe visited the wool research station at Torridon (Leeds) and summed up the director’s point of view as follows:—First, the breeding of the best possible dual purpose sheep and the elimination of obviously undesirable strains of sheep; second, the effect of various forms of management and nutrition on the quality of both meat and wool; third, the careful classification of individual wool clips. The ['director (Dr. Barker) had stressed that any research organisation should start carefully and slowly, not promise too much, and build up a good reserve of funds. In connection with fruit research. Mr Shirtcliffe said he was astonished to learn that Kent alone, with 60,000 acres of orchards, produced two or three times the quantity of apples produced in New Zealand.

At the grass research station at Aberystwyth Professor Stapledon spoke well of North Island ryegrass and said New Zealand could become a large exporter of good white clover seed. Mr Shirtcliffe said world competition was so intense that every effort must be put forward towards quality goods and more economic production.