HEREDITY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5273, 11 May 1928, Page 4

HEREDITY.

PRGPAFATING CHARACTERISTICS.

QUESTION OF THE HUMAN RACE.

An interesting lecture was delivered at Wellington by Professor H. BKirk, of Victoria University College. The usbject of the lecture was* “The Application of the Principles of Heredity.” “The green colour of plants,” said Professor Kirk, “ is due to the pres-; ence of the pigment chlorophyll, which is produced in specialised parts called plastids, and if a plant cell, when it is cut off from its sister cell, contains no plastids, it can fqrm none, and can never take on the green colour. The pollen grains of a plant do not, in most cases at all events, have any plastids ; and thus the male- sex cells, which owe their origin, to the pollen grains, have none, but consist ahnfljst entirely of nuclear matter.” The lecturer gave several examples of hybridised plants with special features, and explained that implant and animal breeding many hybrids possess much greater vigour than their purebred parents. He showed that the breeder of plants has frequently a great advantage over the breeder, of animals, in the conservation of the vigour resulting from crossing, f,or. having obtained a hybrid generation by crossing two desirable races, .he can, in many cases,, propagate the hybrid vegetatively, and so keep his plants at the high level of vigour to which the crossing brought them for many years. “Such a plan, would be eminently suitable in the case of New. Zealand flax,” said the lecturer, “but it could not, of eouys.e, be applied in the case of an annual such as wheat- ■ Other dtesirable qualities, such as fertility, immunity front disease, content of gluten, etc., may also be obtained by crossing. THE HUMAN PROBLEM.

“There is one animal in regard to whose breeding man takes, generally speaking, no care whatever,” said Professor Kirk, “and that animal is himself. It is probable, moreover, that man will never decide that only the best members of the race, should, propagate, but it is quite certain that lie is being; driven towards the adoption of measures that shall prevent the worst and most undesirable members of the race from propagating uni checked. The existing state of society lays on every .civilised ciolmmunity an ever-increasing, burden of. unfitness, in addition to the cost and sorrow that it brings, and it is being recognised that many forms of crime are the outcome of hereditary taint. Yet except when a long term of imprisonment brings abo|ut incidentally an advantage that was not aimed at, we do nothing to prevent the passing on of the tendency. It is, an undisputed fact that insanity and' mental deficiency are inherited, and that where one occurs in a family the other, is frequently present.” The lecturer quoted figures to show how alarmingly. prolific is the breeding of mental deficients, due largely to their .want of, control and their natural fertility, and he expressed the opinion that it was a happy thing for the human race that so many of the. qualities w’hicli make good citizenship were also inherjtable.