BUSH SICKNESS RESEARCH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15073, 16 August 1912, Page 9

BUSH SICKNESS RESEARCH.

A CHEMIST'S SUCCESS,

lux TELEGRAPH.— SPECIAL connr.sroNDr:Nr.3

Wellington-, Thursday. An account of "bush sickness" on pumice lands was given by Mr. G. M. Thomson {Dunedin North) in the House of Representatives on Wednesday evening. He warmly praised the work that has been done by Mr. B. C. Aston, a chemist in the Department of Agriculture, who, ho believed, had solved tho problem so "that in a very short time bush sickness would be a thing of the past. The disease occurred on lands made of comparatively recently ejected volcanic material and containing all tho elements required for plant life. but not in a form in which plants could make use of them. As the result of careful investigation Mr. Aston had found that this pumice soil was deficient in haemoglobin and especially deficient iu iron. In every case it was found that tho sickness was due to the lack of sufficient iron, and a suggestion was made by Mr. Aston that the land should be watered with a solution of iron sulphate. The experiment had been tried, and not only had tha soil dressed in this manner become greener, but the bush sickness had disappeared from it.

"Of all tho substances experimented with," Mr. Aston had written in a paper on tho subject, ''iron sulphate alone has been most successful in enabling sheep (the animal most susceptible) to be kept healthy over a period of eighteen months."