December 24, 1908J 



NA TURE 



-'J5 



.Slu-pp. 

 Eni,'lai 

 glacial 

 vol. X 

 the di 

 known 

 mamm 



ird and Slather's account of a fine section made in 

 ul by the North-Eastern Railway Company in the 



i;ravcls of Holderness CProc. Voikshire Geol. See, 

 VK 1907, p. 170- A few moUuscan species from 

 •ift's are ' added by the authors to those already 



■ but the main interest lies in the bones of 

 uih, bison, horse, walrus, &c., which are believed 



been pushed up inland from the beach by the 

 I liina 'ice-front. G. A. J. C. 



////• 77e.4.VSr.4.1L .LVD INDIAN DEPART- 

 MENTS OF AGRICULTURE.' 

 (0 T^HE annual report of the Transvaal Department of 

 ■'■ Agriculture recently to hand gives a vast amount 

 .of interesting information about the department and the 

 work it is doing among the agricultural community of 

 the Transvaal. The agricultural conditions at the time 

 of its formation were about as bad as it was possible 

 (or them to be. Animal diseases were rife, and besides 

 the ordinary diseases of the country a number of new 

 ones had been introduced during the war. The harvests 

 had been neglected, consequently there was a shortage 

 of seed corn; indeed, some 'varieties were almost, 

 if not quite, lost. The land was in the bad state into 

 which it rapidly falls when neglected, and out of which 

 it can only be' brought by dint of much skilful labour. 

 Only a strong agricultural department could have met the 

 necessities of the case ; a weak one might easily have done 

 a great amount of harm. 



The occasion was one when the ordinary British instinct 

 would have been to send out a number of " practical " men 

 to devise " practical " measures for coping with the various 

 problems. Fortunately, the British instinct did not pre- 

 vail ; the various heads of departments were men of scien- 

 tific training, who began by making a study on scientific 

 lines of the conditions with which they had to deal. As 

 might have been expected, the result has been eminently 

 satisfactory. The Public Service Commission declared 

 itself unable to suggest any alterations or improvements 

 in the general plan, and even the commissioner who was 

 appointed to go into the detailed workings only made a 

 few minor alterations in the clerical staff ; amid much 

 retrenchment in other directions this department has been 

 left practically untouched. To the director, Mr. F. B. 

 Smith, belongs the credit of having boldly conceived the 

 plan and vigorously executed it ; to the scientific staff 

 belongs the credit of having risen to the occasion, and, in 

 the words of one of the Transvaal newspapers, 

 " triumphantly vindicated the practical value of research 

 work." 



It is just this " triumphant " vindication that gives the 

 department a world-wide, and not merely a local, import- 

 ance. No one can read the report and the other publica- 

 tions of the department w'ithout being impressed with 

 " the practical value of research work." The investiga- 

 tions of Dr. A. Theiler, of the veterinary bacteriological 

 laboratory, afford admirable cases in point. A number of the 

 animal diseases with which the country abounds have been 

 studied ; in many cases the particular organisms causing the 

 diseases have been identified, and the method by which they 

 are conveyed from animal to animal discovered. The know- 

 ledge thus gained has made it possible to devise means for 

 controlling the disease. This year's experiments have dealt 

 more particularly with Piroplasma mutatis, an organism that 

 had previously been confounded with the Piroplastna 

 hcgemititttfi producing a South .African redwater, and it is 

 shown that the disease, sometimes contracted even after 

 inoculation, and thought to be ordinary redwater, is really 

 brought on by the newly discovered Piroplasma. " Horse 

 sickness " and " biliary fever " in horses have also been 

 investigated, and inoculation against the latter disease can 

 now be satisfactorily performed, as also can inoculation 



1 (i) .\nnual Report of tfe Transvaal Department of .Vriculture, 100&-7 

 (received September, 190S). T/ii: Traiisziaal Agricttltural /ciirKal, vol. vi., 

 1908. 



(2) Report of the Imperial Department of Agriculture for the Years 1905-6 

 and 1906-7. (Received October, 1908.) 



The .\qricuhural Journal of India, vol. iii., 190S. 



Memoirs of the Department of .Agriculture in India. 



XO. 2043, VOL. 79] 



against " blue tongue " in sheep. Great as is the 

 immediate value of this kind of work, its future value is 

 even greater ; the Transvaal is essentially a stock-producing 

 country, but stock cannot be raised in number until the 

 diseases are inore under control. 



In the botanical section Mr. Burtt-Davy has been 

 examining the native flora and more closely studying 

 promising plants ; the habits of troublesome weeds have 

 also been investigated, and ineihods devised for their 

 eradication. Satislaitory progress is also reported by the 

 plant pathologist, -Mr. I'ole Evans. During the year 300 

 different kinds of fungi and plant diseases were dealt with, 

 a large proportion of the latter being previously un- 

 described. .Attention this year has been largely directed 

 to bitter-pit in apples, a disease causing enormous loss to 

 apple growers, on which a full report is promised at a 

 later stage. Rusts affecting cereals and other economic 

 Gramineae have also been studied, and the " South 

 African locust fungus " has been shown in its true light. 

 Locusts are sometimes fatally attacked by a fungus, 

 Empusa Grylli, Fres., and the Cape and Natal Govern- 

 ments cultivated and distributed what they thought was 

 the fungus with the view of exterminating locusts. Mr. 

 Pole Evans, however, found that the cultures were not 

 Empusa at all ; in fact, Empusa is a pure parasite which 

 cannot be cultivated on artificial media, and is therefore 

 of no practical value as an exterminating agent. On 

 following the matter up, ho found that Empusa had been 

 the starting point in the Cape cultures, but the harmless 

 Miicor exitiosus had appeared, and had been prop.^gated 

 and widely distributed under the impression that it was a 

 destructive organism ! 



The working of the other sections — entomological, 

 forestry, chemical, &c. — appears to be on equally sound 

 lines, while the experimental farms have appealed strongly 

 to the Boer farmer. At the Rand Agricultural Show the 

 department's farms were very successful, both in the com- 

 petitions and in their other exhibits. 



.Altogether the working of the department reflects great 

 credit on all concerned, and affords abundant illustration 

 of what science can do for agriculture. 



(2) The history of the foundation of Pusa, the Indian 

 agricultural experiment station, is too well known to 

 need repetition here. The recently issued report shows the 

 results already obtained, and indicates the broad lines on 

 which work is to proceed ; progress has been steady, and 

 the character of the work promises well for the future 

 of Indian agriculture. 



Naturally we can only look for preliminary results at 

 the present stage. Work at Pusa has hitherto gone on 

 under a certain amount of diflrculty. The buildings have 

 not long been completed. The staff have had very little 

 assistance ; experienced natives to supervise field experi- 

 ments and to give other help were not at first obtainable, 

 and have had to be trained up. Some of the experimental 

 plots were ruined by sudden floods, to which the estate 

 is liable, owing to heavy, continuous rain. .AH this makes 

 research work difl'icult, and the staff deserve high credit 

 for having accomplished so much in these rather unfavour- 

 able circumstances. 



Considerable attention has been devoted to the study of 

 crops suited to Indian conditions — cotton, sugar-cane, jiite, 

 flax, tobacco, wheat, &c. The possibility of extending 

 cotton cultivation in India is being carefully investigated, 

 certain grants being made for the purpose by the British 

 Cotton-growing Association ; so far, the most hopeful 

 line of development seems to be to make the best of the 

 indigenous varieties rather than to introduce new and 

 finer varieties. Serious attempts are also being made to 

 strengthen the position of the indigo planter, and, in 

 addition to the work being done by Mr. Bergtheil, a 

 botanist has been engaged by the Planters' Association to 

 Improve the indigo plant by selection and breeding. The 

 Indian wheats are being collected by Mr. Howard, and 

 type-specimens separated from the mixed crop usually 

 grown; these are described in a monograph, which will 

 be awaited with considerable interest. Similar work on 

 the native barleys and tobaccos is in hand. In all tnese 

 cases cross-breeding, selection, and distribution of variPties 

 true to type will follow. 



The chemical department h-^s, up to the present, been 



