A LOSS TO NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19798, 19 November 1927, Page 10

A LOSS TO NEW ZEALAND.

In losing Dr. Tillyard, who has resigned his position with the Cawthron Institute to accept an important appointment under the Commonwealth Government in Australia, New Zealand loses a distinguished scientist who was engaged in work of the greatest economic importance. It is announced that his departure will not bring to an end the investigations and experiments on which he was engaged. So much is satisfactory, but Dr. Tillyard's place will be hard to fill none the less. The work he was doing calls for wide knowledge, a high degree of patience and the most scrupulous care. Dr. Tillyard has been engaged in a war on the pests with which farmers and orchardists in this country are afflicted, vegetable, insect and fungoid pests. His method has been to discover some natural enemy of the noxious agent,, breed or cultivate it in this country, and let it loose upon the foe it is to fight. This method of attacking pests is not new, but in the past it has been followed sometimes with more enthusiasm than discretion. The result has been, in more than one instance, to establish two pests where there was only one before. Under Dr. Tillyard, the work has been done slowly and carefully, with elaborate tests at every stage, so that the destructive agent should be proved completely benevolent before being released. It is a work of the utmost value in a country where insect and plant enemies of agriculture, introduced unwittingly into a favourable environment free of their natural enemies, have flourished amazingly. It will still continue, but the loss of Dr. Tillyard's expert direction will be serious and not easily repaired.