BUSH SICK COUNTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19832, 30 December 1927, Page 8

BUSH SICK COUNTRY.

In his recent statement on conditions at the Ngaroma settlement, the Minister of Lands said that though assistance has been given to the settlers by the Agricultural Department and at least one private firm through the supply of fertilisers free, the bush-sickness had not been materially alleviated. This observation is of wider importance than in its simple application to Ngaroma. It, shows that with all the hopeful indications resulting from research at Mamaku, that problem of malnutrition known as "bush sickness" is not yet completely solved. The work continues at Mamaku. Though the departmental experts are thoroughly convinced they are on the right track in blaming iron deficiency in the soil for the falling a'vay of stock or such country, they admit freely the farming of it has not yet been made easy for the individual settler. It is well, therefore, that the problem is jpeing attacked vigorously, riot only in New Zealand, but elsewhere. Among the research work conducted under the Empire Marketing Board is an investigation of "the persistent symptoms of malnutrition among flocks and herds"— known as busb-aickness in New Zealand, but actually occurring also in Scotland, the Union of South Africa, Kenya, Australia, Southern Rhodesia and Palestine. The liowett Research Institute, Scotland, h?us the work in hand. New Zealand has contributed toward its cost, and the results will be available to the Agricultural Department, which can add them to the fruit of its own experiments. Enough progress has been made to justify the hope that before long the great obstacle to successful farming in a wide and otherwise promising area will be completely removed, such conditions as those at Ngaroma will disappear, and the progress of development helped along in country where but for this handicap dairying and stockrearing could proceed as successfully as anywhere in New Zealand.