WHEAT WIZARD'S DREAM.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20929, 20 January 1930, Page 9

WHEAT WIZARD'S DREAM.

STORY OF A SACRIFICE. MAN'S PASSION FOR MUSIC. “ Wien I was a little hoy.” said Lauada s favourite great man to an American novelist, “I once lost a piece pt maple sugar down a grating, I can buy pounds of maple sugar to-day, but not the Piece I lost.” That is how Dr Charles Saunders recently said with a smile that he had everything in the world except the one thing he- wanted most. , 1 Saunders is the man of science whose experiments led to the production i . , al 'l lllS , wheat, the wonderful grain which has increased the profits of Canadian farmers by £18,000,000 a year and made many a poor man’s fortune. One ■inn non , °, f - produced 300,000,000 bushels in 10 years, and now it is grown all over the North American continent. An immense community regards Dr Saunders with an affection verging on hero worship. fame does not content him; it is the bit of maple sugar he lost as a boy! iho great man is sad because he thinss ho Ims missed doing the work ho was born to do He believes he ought to have spent his life as a teacher of shi"in ,K- Many, other people could have done what I did in wheat” he savs. “No one else could have done what I was tryim* to do_ in singing.” , This is the story of his sacrifice. He ks tlie osn of a man who had a passion tor science and determined that this son of his should be a chemist. He started to teach the boy about hybridising fruit so early that Charles Sadnders cannot remember a time when he did not know about these things. They were a jolly, affectionate, intelligent family of five brothers and a sister, ■they toyed to do things together, and one or the tliini-? they enjoyed most was music-making. . .aeh played some instrument, Charles the flute. As he grow older he loved music more and more. Beauty seemed to him more than chemistry. The starry skies, the gold and crimson woods of autumn’, the. wide rivers, and the great poets roused in him a spirit which sought expression in music. ' The greatest means of selfexpression is singing,” he says. “As long aS oV. CO , p v ar , e sln K ln P they arc all right.” Ihat is what old William Byrd thought' when he said: '

Smce sniff ms is so good a lliing, I wish all men would learn to sing.” Ur Saunders says lie felt that a lot. of nonsense was talked by teachers of singing. He believed he had something true and valuable to say about it, and he wanted to give up all his days to tcachmg it. But lus father was one of the Kindest fathers who ever lived, and Diaries would not disappoint him. •So young Saunders became a chemist, and was unpointed as his father’s assistant nt tin* Government exiierimontnl hums in Ottawa, where he benr :m ],j s liimous work in crossing wheat, lie declares that anyone eotihl have done what he did in wheat. "I really have no creative ability,-’ he says. “ I never let anyoiio else look after an important detail: that is all! •’

“ ? writer of the story remarks: -And all the time the pipes of Pan were calling, grey-haired, tall, slender, broken m health. Charles Saunders walks slowly by the lake dreaming of music and or a book he wants to write’on iniPurely the man who Rave his me on this planet to science will he pernutted to give his next life to music.”