PROFESSOR MULLER’S DISCOVERY

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 30 November 1927, Page 8

PROFESSOR MULLER’S DISCOVERY

X-RAY AND MUTATIONS BENEFITS THAT MAY BE DERIVED

By

“Sundowner"

(Written for the Tribune. All Rights Reserved.)

Early this month a cable from New York advised us that Professor Herman Muller claimed to have discovered that through applying X-ravs to the germ cells of insects and animals prior to fertilisation he could so break up the germ cells into infinitesimal particles each carrying hereditary characteristics, that he could cause great mutations in the offspring. Through selection from these mutations Professor Muller believes that he can vastly improve the productiveness of man’s domesticated animals, and further that new varieties can be made which will thrive on land now worthless. Whether Professor Muller’s discovery will have the very far-reaching effect that his scientific friends foretell remains to be seen, but in any case no practical results, so far as the farmer is concerned, can be expected for a number of years yet SPEEDING UP MUTATIONS This new discovery of the effect of X-rays on germ cells is apparently merely an enormous speeding up of the number of mutations, which are ordinarily produced by nature very infrequently but nevertheless, regularly. Mutations, by the way, are wide variations or changes from type. These, it has been found by experiment in the past breed true to their new form, or characteristics, and have been generally accepted by scientists as being a method bv which nature exneriments with new types and forms new breeds EVOLUTION’S METHOD. Ordinarily evolution is a very slow process in which nature weeds out those animals unsuited to their environment. while those which survive, breeding together, intensify in their offspring the tracts or characteristics which adapt the anima] to its surrounding conditions. Thus the same breed of animal, bred in differing localities may. and frequently does produce offspring that vary so much as almost to constitute an entirely new breed. This alteration in type Is, however, not what is known as a mutation, but is merely an adaptation to conditions of survivors, or what we usually cal] evolution. MUTATIONS AND EVOLUTION DIFFER. Such change is orderly and gradual and is governed by a known law. Mutations, on the other hand, are abrupt and radical changes in type, conformation, size, etc., for which we cannot account by the law that “like producers like,” for they are entirely contrary to this-rule. Luther Burbank and others took advantage of these mutations among plants to establish new varieties which have been a great booh to mankind through their abnoimal fruitfulness, rapid growth, or adaptability to conditions where otherplants would not thrive. In dealing with plants which could be grown to maturity in a season these men had an opportunity of selecting sufficient of -these rare mutations in a year or so to breed two of like characteristics together and so perpetuate the new variety of plant. With insects a similar rapidity of breeding and early maturity occurs, hefice these have been selected by scientists for experiments along similar lines. When it comes to domestic animals, however, their rate of reproduction js so comparatively slow, that an investigator might well have to wait a lifetime to procure one desirable mutation, and then would probably be unable to secure a similar mutation of the opposite sex through which to perpetuate the new breed. It must be remembered that for every desirable mutation (so fai as man's wants are concerned) there may be many undesirable. Man has therefore contented himself with improvement of his animals through Nature’s slower but surer method, and by careful selection and mating has hastened evolution in those animals in which he is interested

SECURING A WIDER CHOICE. Professor Muller’s discovery, if his claims are proved, will mean that ho can, from selected and X-ray treated animals, produce 1000 mutations where but one would occur naturally. Obviouslv this gives much more chance of selecting a desirable nintiu tion and at the same time of securing a mate of similar type with which to breed him. ' At the same time it is certain that hundreds and thousands of mutations would he produced, which would be undesirable and therefore waste NATURE’S ORDERLY METHOD A study of animal history reveals that nature, though always experimenting, never appears to work blindly. In an undisturbed state she always produces the maximum number and size of any species of animal that the country can maintain in n state of health. It is only by first improving the productiveness of the land that we can aid nature through selection in making the same number of stock bigger or more productive and still maintain their health and vigour.

NO LIMIT NOW BUT LANDS FERTILITY . As far as producing animals which are “meatier, woollier, and larger’’ is concerned, we could easily do this now without having to relv on muta. ilons, provided we had the country which would sustain this extra production. The writer has seen flocks of Merino sheep which clipped five pounds of wool improved in the course of a few years bv selective breeding to produce ten pounds and more of wool, hut in every case the improvement of the pasture kept pace with the greater production BENEFITS OF MULLER’S DISCOVERY. Where the greatest benefit from mutations is likely to be noticeable, is in the making of new breeds of animals which will be adaptable to pastures which are now worthless for carrying stock. Even in the North Island of New Zealand we have thousands of acres of unproductive pumice country. A sheep that would thrive and return a reasonable profit on such country would be invaluable. A breed of cattle that would thrive and fatten on manuka and bracken fern would also be distinctly useful and probably not impossible to produce. Sheep that like a sow, would produce a litter of nine or ten lambs in place of the one or two at most which we now get to convert into prime lamb for the Home market, would please our lamb fatteners. FARMERS’ IMMEDIATE PROBLEM, Though all these things may conceivably be possible in the future through the aid of science, the farmers’ immediate problem is to increase the fertility of the soil. Given maximum growth in the pasture, it is ao very difficult problem to improve the productiveness of the stock carried thereon.