SIR JOHN RUSSELL.

Otago Witness, Issue 3882, 7 August 1928, Page 13

SIR JOHN RUSSELL.

TO TOUR THE DOMINION.

Sir John Russell, director of the Rothamstead Experimental Station in England. is at present on a visit to the Dominion, having arrived in Auckland on •Tuesday. He can spend only 18 days in New- Zealand, leaving on his return to England on August 18. He has expressed the desire to see as much of the country a s possible during hi s short stay, and he is anxious to explore its rura * features as much as its scenic wealth All phases of agricultural probems a s they affect New Zealand will be looked into by Sir John, with special reference to those that might be made the subject aS experimental work at the splendidly-equipped station with which he is connected at Home. When in Nelson h e will deliver the fifth Cawthron lecture, probably on August 9. bir John s itinerary has been arranged subject to necessary alterations, afteh he commences his tour. The dairying districts around Hamilton will be visited first after which the Governmental Experimental Farm at Mamaku will be inspected on the wuy to Rotorua. After a brief stay in the thermal regions he will proceed via Hawke’s Bay to the Massey Agricultural College at Palmer?J’? r l ‘.. Nor th- A ew da - Vs be spent in Wellington, after which the visitor will go to Nelson, taking in the Marlborough district at the same time, and proceeding thence to Canterbury, where some time will be spent visiting the Lincoln (-ollege. Sir John Russell has expressed a particular desire to visit Otago and Dunedin, and will spend two or three days here, before leaving fo r Wellington to catch the London boat. Sir John Russell has been in Australia for some weeks now, after visiting Palestine on behalf of the Empire Marketing Board. Besides lecturing, he has been inquiring into many problems peculiar to Australia, visiting many experimental and private farms. The great object of his Empire tour is to pave the way for agricultural scientists in all parts of the world to pool their information, so that the whole Empire and eventually the whole world may benefit.

The Rothamsted Experimental Station, with which Sir John Russell has been connected since 1907, and of which he has been director since 1912, is recognised as the first and foremost agritural research station in the world, "its researches into soil, manurial and other problems fundamental to agriculture are recognised the world over as unassailable and authoritative, all phases of soil culture and farming methods, including the control of noxious weeds and other pests by insects and other means, being studied. The Rothamsted Experimental Station was started in 1840, its activities then being very small, not to say primitive, compared with what they are now. Science as applied to agriculture was in those days an insignificant factor. But Rothamsted persevered, and the pioneering work of Sir J. B. Lawes and Sir J. H. Gilbert gradually won recognition, and the results which they obtained, heretical and subversive as they appeared at one time, are now firmly accepted. The record of Lawes and Gilbert is a remarkable one; Lawes, far-seeing, but with a keen sense of perspective, laid down the broad outlines of the work, and Gilbert with meticulous care filled in the details. In the early days there were no young scientific workers to help; boys from the village school were taught to do the work, and as they grew up were retained on the staff, and they in turn trained others to follow them. The method may be looked upon as. unusual, but results show that it works. The method still remains; young men and women including members of the second and third generations, are still following on, keeping up the old traditions, always doing their work to the best of their ability because they know that somehow it fits into the great scheme of which they and all members of the Rothamsted staff are proud. Sir John Russell, himself an eminent worker and author along agricultural lines, now carries on the traditions of Rothamsted. Trained university workers

have of late come in, and elaborate scientific investigations go on side by side with the classical field experiments. But though the plan has been so widened, there has been no sacrifice in any detail of the field work, and its continuity, which is the essence of the Rothamsted experiments, is maintained as of old. _ The Rothamsted Experimental Farm did not escape the ravages of the Great War. Many of its most promising workers made the supreme sacrifice, and the famous Broadbalk Field received a bomb during a Zeppelin raid in Septem her, 1916. An enormous hole was made in an experimental plot, and a few panes of glass were broken, but that was the total oi the damage. It was reckoned that it was not jealousy which caused the Germans to bomb the foremost of the experimental fields in the world; a more likely theory is that the Zeppelins had lost thei- way. As they passed over the field the rows of shocks standing in the moonlight may have appeared to them from the height above like rows of soldiers’ tents, and they may have thought that they spotted a military camp. Anyway, down came the bomb and much wheat was scattered far and wide. Other bombs fell further away, striking terror into the hearts of the villagers, but Rothamsted was unperturbed and carried on, and still continues to do so, to the benefit of agriculturists the world over.