ARSENIC IN FARMS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23137, 8 September 1938, Page 11

ARSENIC IN FARMS

POSITION AT EEPOKOA] LITTLE STOCK POISONING RESEARCH BEING CONTINUED [by telegraph—OWN correspondent} ROTORUA, Wednesday Officers of the Departments of LancU and Survey and Agriculture are con( tinning in active co-operation the iiv vestigation into suspected arsenid poisoning among stock in the Reporod district.

The district superintendent of agrw culture from Auckland, Mr. W. T. CoU lins, and the veterinarian from Hamil-i ton, Mr. J. Mullins, in company with the chief chemist of the Department oj Agriculture, Mr. R. E. R. Grimmett* are at present visiting the district ancj carrying out a further inspection of affected properties. Experiments ara being conducted under the immediate control of the local stock supervisor* Mr. M. B. Mackenzie.

In an interview, Mr. Grimmett com* mented briefly on the progress so faU made. The investigation of the bution of arsenic in soils and waters! had been completed and the settlers in* formed individually as to the position on their own farms. It was not considered that there would bo any advantage in publishing this section of the report until other aspects of the work, particularly those dealing with the actual mortality oil stock and the degree to which this could be connected with the occurrence of arsenic and its intake from soils and waters, had been completed. Where animals died or were killed,; specimens of the organs had been forwarded for analysis. Out of about a. dozen cases of animals dying from all, causes, only two contained sufficient ar-*, senic to support a definite suspicion thatl, this might be connected with ; the causa of death. It, therefore, appeared, that the stock losses had been much magnified or that they had been,; wrongly attributed to arsenic poison--ing, rather than to a multiplicity of factors, of which shortage of feed and cover during the hard winter conditional was probabh' one. It was intended, however, - to conv tinue investigations and experiments during the next month or two, as iti' was possible that this might be a mordf critical period. >