BENEFICENT COBALT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23620, 2 April 1940, Page 6

BENEFICENT COBALT

Few discoveries of agricultural research have been more readily seized on and quickly applied than that deficiency of cobalt was responsible for the wasting condition of sheep and cattle on certain classes of land. In the Auckland Province the condition has hampered animal husbandry on very wide areas of what is called "bush sick" country. The affected lands were more extensive than was often admitted for obvious reasons. It is important that everyone concerned with the land should understand that cobalt has lifted this particular shadow, permitting a much more stable pastoral development and fuller exploitation. Such an understanding should improve the estimation of the secuiity offered by such lands and enable farmers to obtain the finance that will enable them to reap the benefits of the discovery. Some account of the improvement effected on formerly "bush sick" lands by minute applications of cobalt, or by its administration to sheep and cattle in other ways, is given in an article published in the Herald this morning. It says much for the intelligence of v pastoralists that its value has been so quickly appreciated and widely applied. Yet the results of using the new knowledge have been so striking in Auckland, Nelson and Southland as to be undeniable. Cobalt is not a panacea, of course, but it does make possible a revolution in sheep and cattle husbandry on large areas, especially pumice and granite lands, where its lack was previously a severely limiting factor. If justice is to be done to many districts formerly held in low esteem, the fact should be known in the city as well as the country. Nor should the debt owed to scientific research in solving this and other baffling agricultural problems be forgotten. It can best be discharged by ensuring that research workers are enabled to pursue their activities with reasonable facilities and unbroken continuity.