HELP OF SCIENCE

Hokitika Guardian, 19 March 1930, Page 8

HELP OF SCIENCE

PItOIILEMS OF THE HAND

INCREASING WOOL YIELDS

SYDNEY, March 6

New Zealand must -be interested in the remarkable advances that have been made in Australia in the investigation of problems in the primary industries, as revealed in the annual report of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. Two men well known in the Dominion play an important part in the work of the council. They are Dr. Tillyard and ID. Gilruth, the latter being the, newly appointed licief of the Animal Health Division.

Mr TI. R. Marston, acting as Chief of the Division of Animal Nutriment, reports that interesting work is being done on the study of phosphorus-bear-ing licks with which to overcome the phosphorus deficiency that exists in many Australian pastures. . “There is good reason to Relieve,” he says, “that the efficiency of the usual rock phosphate licks can Ite considerably improved in certain areas. The division is also obtaining valuable'rosults from feeding experimental sheep with fod-

ders containing high percentages of the protein known as cystine (of which wool is, j mainly composed). In ihe animals so fed the average weight of the fleece has been increased considerably. A search is now being made for economical sources of this particular compound. Some of these are being found in most unexpected places.

Regarding animal health, Dr Gilrutli says that evidence is accumulating that swollen glands, a serious hindrance to the Australian export lamb and mutton trade, were due to an. organism which entered the tissues of the sheep through wounds occasioned during shearing, tailing and marking operations. A method of overcoming the trouble was becoming more apparent than formerly.

i The chief of the Division of Plant Industry says that important progress • has been made in connexion with bitter pit in apples, now believed to be due to picking the fruit at too early a stage of maturity. In the field of entomology, Dr Tillyard reports that encouraging results were being detained in the work on the possibility of controlling weeds by means of insects. Attention was being given mainly to St. John’s wort, ragwort, and Noougoora burr, and the experimental work with insects bad so far been very successful.