NATURE 



[May 6, 1920 



services in the Boer War to singular efficiency in the 

 late war was due to change in the status of the 

 Army medical officers and to their liberation from 

 the misdirection of unqualified superiors. This was 

 possible only because of the great strength of the 

 professional union of medical men. A similar strong 

 professional union comprising every qualified man of 

 science was necessary before science ceased to be 

 misdirected and used to the hurt rather than to the 

 good of the community. 



Not a single chemist was included in the direc- 

 torate of the national scheme for the manufacture of 

 British dyes when it was announced, although the 

 taxpayer contributed 2,ooo,oooL, a portion of which 

 was to be expended in research. The cause of the 

 success of the German industry was that it was under 

 scientific direction from end to end. Prof. Soddy 

 complained that the benefaction of Mr. Carnegie to 

 foster scientific study and research at the Scottish 

 universities had been diverted to the general main- 

 tenance of the universities. At one time none of the 

 trustees were men of science, and the secretary was 

 iiow the administrative chairman of the Government 

 Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. 

 That Department allocated a million to industrial 

 research associations in the form of a capital grant, 

 over which Parliament was powerless, whereas 

 researches in the fields of pure science, from which 

 directly flowed all the useful applications, were put 

 on the yearly Parliamentary Estimates. The research 

 associations were becoming water-tight concerns to 

 eliminate competitors, and the interests neither of the 

 public nor of the scientific worker were protected. 

 Representatives both of trained scientific workers 

 and of organised labour should be included in the coun- 

 cils and executive committees of the research associa- 

 tions. At the same time. Prof. Soddy urged that 

 representatives of democratically constituted associa- 

 tions of scientific workers should be placed on the 

 Council of the Department, of which it should be 

 the governing body. He declared his belief that 

 GO-operation would replace competition ; but this co- 

 operation depended upon a dominance of individuals 

 of intellect and knowledge — not over men, but over 

 Nature; for the struggle of man against Nature was, 

 in the first instance, a duel fought by lonely men in 

 the furthest outposts of knowledge, finding a path 

 where all before had turned back beaten and 

 befogged. 



In the discussion which followed Sir William Bragg 

 urged that as science slowly established its position 

 and men of science reached a condition of greater 

 equity, responsibility came with it, and they must 

 work and learn to handle greater and greater things, 

 so that they might take their part in everything that 

 was done in the State. He expressed his apprecia- 

 tion of the assistance he had received from the 

 Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. 



American Agricultural Research. 



RECENT numbers of the Journal of Agricultural 

 Research (vol. xviii., Nos. 7 and 8) contain 

 several articles dealing with plant physiology and with 

 insect pests. Plants grown in water-culture are not 

 able to withstand such high concentrations of nutrient 

 salts without showing toxic effects as are plants grown 

 in sand or soil. In the latter case the presence of 

 solid particles, which cause a considerable amount of 

 absorption, has much to do with this reduction of 

 toxicity, but J. A. Le Clerc and J. F. Breazeale 

 have shown that the effect is also partly due to 

 certain soluble substances which are sometimes present 

 NO. 2636, VOL. 105] 



in very small quantities. Traces of calcium oxide and 

 calcium sulphate do much to overcome the toxicity 

 of sodium chloride and sodium sulphate, but the 

 various other salts tested had no ameliorating action. 

 The lime, however, does not seem to prevent the 

 entrance of the sodium chloride or sulphate into the 

 plant-cells, and therefore its antagonistic action would 

 appear to be due to some undetermined cause rather 

 than to its effect upon the permeability of the cells. 



The question of the physiological balance of the 

 salts necessary for plant nutrition is many-sided, and 

 J. W. Shive approaches it from the point of view of 

 the relation of the moisture in solid substrata to the 

 physiological salt-balance and to the relative plant- 

 producing value of various salt proportions. Under 

 his experimental conditions the physiological value of 

 salt solutions was not affected by the degree of mois- 

 ture present, and that which was best with the lowest 

 moisture-content was also the best with the medium 

 and the highest degrees of moisture. Nevertheless, 

 an optimum moisture-content is necessary to produce 

 maximum growth, and the actual plant-producing 

 value of any fertiliser treatment is largely determined 

 by the moisture conditions of the substratum. 



It is customary to subject cereal seeds to treatment 

 by hot water or various chemicals in order to control 

 plant diseases when their presence on the seed is 

 known or suspected. Such treatments are not effec- 

 tive in every case, as measures that are sufficiently 

 drastic to cut out the disease often result in destroying 

 the viability of the seed. D. Atanasoff and A. G. 

 Johnson find that these difficulties may be largely 

 overcome by the use of dry heat for disinfection, as 

 such cereals as barley, wheat, rye, and oats are able 

 to withstand protracted exposures to dry heat at com- 

 paratively high temperatures, especially if the seed is 

 of good quality and well dried. The method has 

 proved successful in the elimination of seed infection 

 from bacterial blight of barley (Bacterium translucens) 

 and bacterial blight of oats (Pseudonomas avenae), 

 and a number of seed-borne fungus diseases, such as 

 wheat-scab, spot-blotch of barley, stripe disease, and 

 smut, are either practically eliminated or much 

 reduced. The dry heat treatment seems to offer 

 possibilities which should be followed up. 



Natural enemies must be regarded as a great asset 

 in the control of insect pests, but the value of fungal 

 parasites in this respect is often overlooked. A. T. 

 Speare describes experiments on Sorost>orella uvella, 

 an entomogenous fungus which attacks Nortuid larvae, 

 and is recorded for the first time in America. The 

 practical interest of the investigation lies in the fact 

 that quite a number of Noctuid larvae, including such 

 pests as cutworms, have proved to be susceptible to 

 the disease, and other Lepidopterous larvae can also 

 be infected bv special methods. The disease caused 

 by the organism is readily transmitted to healthy 

 insects, and in laboratory experiments a mortalitv of 

 from 60 to 90 per cent, may be obtained. Control by 

 means of parasitism has proved of great value in 

 reducing the Mediterranean fruit-fly in Hawaii. Four 

 larval parasites of this pest have been introduced and ■ 

 established since iqiT,, and their value as destroyers H 

 increased until in 1918 thev caused the destrurtion of * 

 considerably more than half of all the fri'it-flies 

 developing in fruits about Honolulu (H. F. Willard). 

 The ravages of the broad-bean weevil (Bruchus 

 rufimanus, Boh) in California have led to the abandon- 

 ment of a considerable acreage, especially since weevil- 

 infested beans have been classed as adulterated food. 

 R. E. Campbell (Bull. 807, Professional Paper, 

 U.S.A. Dept. Agric.) gives an account of the dis- 

 tribution and life-history of the pest and discusses 

 various measures of control. The onlv practicable 

 means is to plant seed which contains no live weevils, 



