AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19929, 24 April 1928, Page 8

AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH.

CO-ORDINATION OF WORK. SIR JOHN RUSSELL'S MISSION. [FROM OUB OWN CORRESPONDENT.] LONDON. March 34 At the Imperial Agricultural Conference, held last October, at which New Zealand was represented by Dr. C. J. Reakes, Mr. T. Bigg and Mr. R. E. R. Grimmett, it was agreed that it would be an advantage to all concerned to have some centre where any officer oi the Imperial or Dominion Governments could send for information as a matter of right. Ona of the reasons why Sir John .Russell, dirijctor of the Rothsmsted Experimental Station, will shortly be visiting New Zealand, is to go into this question with the Dominion authorities and to obtain a first-hand knowledge of the country and its requirements. Sir John will leave England in about a month's time, and will arrive in Australia in June. On his way out he is to visit Palestine, where he will examine aud advise on the schemes of the Empire Marketing Board and thra Zionist movement. At about the end of July he will sail for New Zealand, where he will stay for a fortnight. " I am going to New Zealand, said Sir John, " mainly for my own education. I really want to see the agricultural conditions, of which I know nothing, except by repute. We have nearly always bad students from New Zealand at the institute, and obviously we can help thsm better if 1 we have a first-hand knowledge of the country. While I am in the Dominion I want also to find out firsthand in what ways we can help when the Imperial Soil Bureau is set up at Rothamsted."

Sir John explained that there were about 70 useful journals of agriculture in different languages. It would be much more practical for a central bureau to receive all literature on agricultural subjects, go though them, make translations, and distribute the information thus obtained to the various parts of the Empire according to their special requirements. It v?as quite impossible for every soil investigator to test all the new experiments. It would be the function of the Soil Bureau to examine new systems and repoit on them. " As we have been working here for some years in conjunction with the Cawthron Institute," added Sir John. I shall naturally pay a visit to Nelson and to the institute. My plans for New Zealand have not been made yet, but I wish to spend my time to the maximum advantage. lam looking forward to my tour, more especially as ft has a direct bcaiing on what I hope will soon come to pass a fuller co-operation between Home and Dominion research stations. 1 should like to make it possible for research men and women to visit all experimental stations in the Empire. I first suggested this at the Agricultural Conference last year, and I should like to see Rothamsted more ot an Empire centre. , " The Ministry of Agriculture are muu pleased that I am paying this visit to the Dominions, and our own Board of governors took the same view. ibeir awtude is: ' The more we can help a S" cul " ture in the Empire, the better. thing we can do to help we should do.