Farm Notes.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43386, 10 November 1908, Page 4

Farm Notes.

FARMER It ,! taken as a legitimate' of { satisfaction to the comat large tKat at the meet.ngs t>f th# British Association the most important contribution to science is of immediate and practical value. It is not too much to say that knowledge has advanced mere rapidly in the last year or two on the subject of heredity than on any other question, except perhaps the influence of radium on the economy of the world. And heredity is everyone’s concern. Ih this so-called Law of Mendel there is much that is obscure and •difficult, but the plain fact comes out that one can tell with great exactitude what will happen in subsequent generations when certain plants or when certain animals are mated to r 1 V- gether. Among these animals even a man it is thought,imay be included. The colour of the eyes of children can • be foretold in the same way as the t size of peas, the colour of mice, or the wool of sheep. What was said by by the men of soience. at Dublin is therefore, of the closest possible concern to farmers and stockbreeders. A knowledge of the law should enable them to improve their breeds of stock, as the practice of the law has already improved certain grains. The most remarkable of all the experiments made at Cambridge is the successful creation of a kind of wheat, which is actually proof against the pernicious disease known as rust. Even when grown in absolute contact with diseased plants, this wheat . keeps clean and healthy. One speaker: estimated, the rust destroyed yearly throughout the world £100,000,000 worth of food. If this new scheme does no more than protect wheat from this disease it will have amply justified itself as of practical concern to the national authorities.