The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 1924. SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 18973, 26 March 1924, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 1924. SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

The opinion credited to Sir William Crookes, that the superiority of Western civilisation to that of the Orient is due to the fact that wheat is superior to rice as a food, suggests to the Sydney Telegraph that if we had the visiop we could see in a grain of one of the master cereals on which mankind subsists, as in a magic crystal, all the marches and counter-marches of civilisation. We have our own special wheat problems, which engage the attention of special investigators, like the late William Farrer, whose name lives in the light of the blessing reserved to those who make two blades of grass grow where one grew before. But the development of the wheat plant must have engaged the attention of experimenters long before the modern scientist Was born. Wheat is said to exist to-day as a wild grass in potamia, and those who, before the dawn of history, tamed this wild grass must have had the spirit of our own Farrer. England’s wheat at one time averaged only five bushels to the acre, against the average of thirty-two bushels to-day. Professor Biffin, of Cambridge, from one of the varieties of wheat he has produced, obtained a yield of ninety-six bushels to the acre under special and favourable conditions. Our cables recently reported the widespread interest aroused in Britain by the announcement that Mr. Hepburn, a Scottish fanner, claims to have discovered the root cause of plant diseases. It is explained that the sovereign remedy for these diseases is the rising sap. Where a steady flow of this is provided for disease attacks the plants in vain. All that is needed is to see to it that Nature’s intent is not defeated. The announcement is more than a theory. It has been proved, at least to a limited extent, to be true by the test of experiments conducted by competent scientific The scientific side of the discovery may be left to the scientist. What concerns the man in the street and the man on the land is that the methods of this Scottish farmer will, it is calculated, increase the yield of wheat by from 20 to 100 per cent. If these good tidings be indeed true, farming will become more profitable and attractive, with the enrichment of the acre yield, and an amazingly expanded torrent of golden grain will provide for an immense increase of population. This splendid prospect encourages the Telegraph to emphasise the importance of scientific research. It says: “We spend much time in the consideration of economic problems, mainly concerned with the cost of living—with production and its contingent problems of transportation and distribution. But there is a roseate hope abroad, steadily growing into something more than a hope, that the

true solution of the problems which dedevil us to-day lies not in political or economic readjustments or experiments, so much as in the ‘starry angel, science.” We have been given the key to Nature’s treasure-house. The door is now open, but there are multitudinous rooms to be explored, filled with locked treasure chests. The world has been industrialised gigantically within the last fifty years. It may be a regrettable development, but it is here, and we cannot turn back the hands of the clock. What we have to do is to cope with the problems we have ourselves created. The needs of immense concentrations of industrial populations make the opportunity of the farmers, and if through scientific developments in agriculture the field ean more easily and cheaply support the factory, an ideal equipoise or reciprocation between industrialism and agrarianism will certainly be brought nearer. It is not merely a problem of subsistence which is involved in Wresting the secrets of Nature, for these are also deeply related to problems of existence.” All this is undoubtedly true. It is common knowledge that the successive discoveries of science with regard to wheat have an intimate bearing upon the life of man on this planet. It has even been claimed, not without justification, that wheat, with barley, millet, and rice, made civilisation possible, by drawing men into cities from the nomad life of herdsmen and endowing them With the opportunities for social evolution. But after all, important though it is, wheat is merely on« of the innumerable subjects calling aloud for scientific investigation. As instancing just one premising arena, our Sydney contemporary points to the wonderful pharmacopoeia of the forest as being in all probability the repository of cures for most of the ills that flesh is heir to, and we can quite sympathetically share in its regret that limited financial resources do not permit of adequate research work into the possibilities Of the characteristic flora of Australia and New Zealand. It is a vast field, practically unexplored, and who can say what potent treasures may be imprisoned there, awaiting the liberating hand of science.