SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19953, 23 May 1928, Page 8

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH.

EXPERTS FOR DOMINION. •HAIRS AT MASSEY COLLEGE. PROBLEMS IN AGRICULTURE. JtfOOL AND OTHER INDUSTRIES. [from our own correspondent,] LONDON, April 18. Dr. F. W. Dry, M.Sc., who has been Selected for the Chair of Agricultural Zoology at the Massey Agricultural College, has been specialising in zoology at Leeds under Professor W. Garstang, but he has been also associated a good deal with the Department of Agriculture. His investigations have all had some bearing on agriculture. The first half of Dr. Dry's research career was devoted to insect pests in Yorkshire and in Kenya Colony. On leaving college he travelled in the United States as a Carnegie student attached to the United States Bureau of Entomology, and later paid a shorter visit to the States. He has been interested in the relation of insects with their surroundings, and especially in the factors determining the abundance of pa?ticular insects. Investigations which specially appealed to Dr. Dry were upon the egg parasites of the coffee bug in East Africa. He hopes to watch with interest the work being done in New Zealand on the introduction of parasites with a view to controlling pests. He says he has been much impressed by Dr. Tillyard's work in the Dominion in both pure and advanced entomology. For the past six years Dr. Dry has been connected with the Departments of Zoology and Textile Industries at Leeds University. On the more practical side he has been occupied with colour inheritance in sheep. More fundamental work has been concerned with problems of hair growth and golourisation in smaller mammals. Breeding of Livestock. , "Most problems in livestock breeding," Saad Dr. Dry, in the course of an interview, "are more complicated than the one with which I. have been specially concerned, and in so young a science as genetics there is imperative need for fundamental work. This can best be carried out upon small animals like flies and rats. On the practical side results are most likely to be secured where the output of an animaJ —in milk, wool, or eggs—can be measured. A good deal has already been done in this direction in dairy cattle and poultry, and various investigators are turning their attention to the quantity and value of the output of wool in sheep. There is also need for study ot the developmental history of individual fibres of the fleece. Xhis should follow up in greater detail investigations already carried out, notably by Professor J. E. Duerden in South Africa. At the present time there is a good deal of activity in wool research in various parts of the world. Dr. Dry has a cousin living in Isew Zealand—Mr. Y. C. Lipseombe—who has a'post in the School of Art in lnvercargnl. Dr. Dry will be accompanied by his wife and two children. His wife is of American birth and is an arts graduate of Michigan University, specialising in English literature. "Our main diversion," said Dr. Dry, "has been visiting places of literary, historical, and other interest in Gre.it Britain. My wife has lived in my country and T have lived in hers, and now we look forward eagerly to a country fresh to us both. I became very attached to East Africa and the prospect of another new country with abundant sunshine appeals to me strongly." Dr. Dry's sailing date has not yet been fixed. Dr. S. A. Asdell's Career. The position of lecturer in nutrition and psychology of farm animals at the Massey Agricultural College has been awarded to Dr. Sydney Arthur Asdell, M.A., Ph.D., of the Animal Nutrition Institute, Cambridge University. Accompanied by his wife and son, he will leave for New Zealand by the Ruapehu on June 29. Dr. Asdell was educated at King Edward VI. Grammar School, Birmingham, where he gajned the school. Rugby XV. colours. For three years of the war he served in the Royal' Naval Air Service, and in the Royal Navy. An ex-service scholarship took him to Cambridge University, where he gained honours in the natural science degree. In 1922 he was appointed to a research position in the Animal Nutrition Institute, School of Agriculture, Cambridge University. In' 1926-27 Dr. Asdell had a Fellowship under the International Education Board (Rockefeller), and spent a year in the United States at the Universities of Rochester and California, and he also visited the principal State experimental stations. His work has chiefly related to breeding and milk production in animals. On this subject he has published numerous papers.