AUSTRALIAN OFFER

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 245, 13 September 1935, Page 15

AUSTRALIAN OFFER

DR CUNNINGHAM’S SERVICES. FRUIT GROWERS ALARMED. It is understood that Dr G. H. Cunningham, Dominion mycologist, who has been in charge of the Plant Research Station at Palmerston North since its inception, has received an offer for liis services from Australia, which he visited last year as an expert representative of the New Zealand Government to discuss the fruit embargo negotiations. He is one of the foremost scientists of New Zealand, and his important work in several investigational spheres is widely recognised.

Much concern at the possibility of New Zealand losing Dr Cunninghame’s services was expressed at the annual Dominion conference of the New Zealand Fruitgrowers’ Federation Ltd. in Wellington yesterday. The conference decided to send a deputation to the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. C. E. Macmillan) to impress on him the necessity of “avoiding this threatened disaster.”

The question was raised at the conference at the close of an address by Dr Cunningham. Mr J. Dicker (Nelson), vice-president, said the industry had benefittcd greatly from the work of the scientist. Just what that work had contributed to the success of the industry could only with difficulty be exactly estimated, but the fact that the New Zealand product stood at the top, or near the top, on the overseas market was very largely due to the work of men like Dr Cunningham. He had imparted information of very great value to growers.

CONSTERNATION EXPRESSED. Mr Dicker said he had learned with consternation of the possibility of the Dominion losing Dr Cunningham's services. Other countries were after them. That had happened in th e past and there was a danger of it happening in the future. The loss of Dr Cunningham would be nothing Short of a disaster. On Mr Dicker’s motion the conference carried a resolution learning with consternation that the Dominion wan

likely to lose the services of Dr Cunningham and favouring, the sending of a deputation to the Minister of Agriculture, to impress on him the necessity of avoiding this disaster. In conveying the wishes of the conference to Dr Cunningham, the Dominion president (Mr T. C. Brash) said those who had heard this was likely to happen were feeling very great concern over it. He thought everything possible should be done to try and avert Dr Cunningham’s leaving this country. He hoped that as a result of the representations of the conference an attempt at least would be made to prevent it happening.

Dr Gordon Herriot Cunningham was born in Otago in 1892 and educated at Victoria University College, Wellington. taking the degrees M.Sc. and Ph.D. He joined the Department of Agriculture in 1917 and has been mycologist continuously since 1919, and was transferred to the Plant Research Station at Palmerston North in 1928. He is a specialist in plant diseases and the systematics of New Zealand fungi. He was leected a fellow of the New Zealand Institute in 1929, and was New Zealand representative at the Imperial Mycology Conference in 1929. He served on Gallipoli, where he was wounded His publications include “Fungus Diseases of Fruit Trees” and 7o papers.