July 4, 1907] 



NATURE 



stood fileau disease. \'arious experiments in the prepar- 

 ation and disinfection of cane cuttings and in testing cane 

 varieties for their resistance to disease that have been 

 carried out are recorded, and should prove most helpful 

 to growers. 



The ninth and concluding section deals with free-living 

 nematodes inhabiting the soil about the roots of cane and 

 their relation to root diseases. The root diseases are very 

 serious, and in these soil-inhabiting nematodes we have 

 organisms capable, through their punctures, of giving 

 entrance to smaller parasitic organisms that would hasten 

 the death of the plant roots. 



The author describes no less than eighteen new species 

 of these worms, and records five more found around the 

 roots of diseased canes in Hawaii. They are included in 

 the genera Dorvlaimus, Tylenchus, Mononchus, Pris- 

 matolaimus, Cephalobus, S:c., and one new genus, Antho- 

 nema, is described. 



The whole work is excellent in every respect, not only 

 from an economic point of view, but as an example of the 

 thorough way in which such scientific investigations should 

 be carried out. 



The sixth report of the Woburn Experimental Fruit 

 Farm deals with various washes used for the destruction 

 of injurious insects.' .\mong the more important experi- 

 mented with were the alkali washes, paraffins and 

 emulsions, lime-sulphur and others in connection with 

 the destruction of the mussel scale (Mytilaspis pomorum). 

 The portion of the report dealing with the paraffin oils and 

 emulsions will prove of great value, and also from a 

 scientific point of view much else in the report. But some 

 of the results do not at all agree with what growers have 

 found, such, for instance, that lead arsenate wash badly 

 ■scorches the leaves under certain conditions and at certain 

 strengths. It has not, it seems, been found to do so in 

 their hands. 



Some interesting work on silver leaf is given in con- 

 clusion. As a scientific chemical work it is all that could 

 be desired, but the reader must take certain results 

 with care, for if " egg-counts " have been made 

 taking into account the following sentence, " we 

 certainly found a greater destruction of eggs by insecticides 

 in the case of scales which had been thus bored (by 

 Chalcididae), than of those which were intact," then we 

 must discount some of the results obtained. Some of the 

 opening remarks might with advantage have been e.x- 

 cluded by the authors. 



But in spite of these few blemishes there is much useful 

 reading, and horticulturists are indebted to the authors 

 for their kindly interest, which we hope to see continued, 

 for it is the first attempt at anything like sound treatment 

 of the subject. Fred. V. Theobald- 



THE POSITION AND PROSPECTS OF 

 CHEMICAL RESEARCH IN GREAT BRITAIN." 



The Status of Original Rcscarcli. 

 "T^O ai! who are familiar with the influence of scientific 

 progress on the evolution of civilisation, that is, to 

 all students of the history of modern science, the general 

 want of appreciation of research here cannot but be a 

 matter of profound wonderment. It is not my intention 

 to attempt an analysis of the causes of this public apathy 

 on the present occasion. We must, I am afraid, deal with 

 it as an accepted fact. .Attention has from time to time 

 been directed to this national weakness by the Press and 

 by publicists whose influence should carry conviction to 

 the lay mind. We can, no doubt, remember weighty 

 utterances bv statesmen such as the Duke of Devonshire, 

 the late Lord Salisbury, Lord Rosebery, Mr. Chamberlain, 

 Mr. Balfour, and, above all, in recent times, Mr. Haldane, 

 who loses no opportunity of driving home the lesson of 

 the importance of science and of scientific method to the 

 national welfare. Nor have our scientific workers them- 



1 '■ Sixth Reporl of the Woburn Experimental Fruit Farm." By the 

 Duke of Bedford. K.G., and Spencer U. Pickering, F.R.S. Pp. v + 235. 

 (London : Eyre and Spottiswoof'e. iQori.) Price 4s. 



- Abiidsed from the Presidential Address delivered at the annual general 

 meeting of the Chemical Society on March 22 by Prof. Raphael Meldola, 

 F.R.S. 



selves failed to sound the note of alarm with all the 

 authority of expert knowledge. But, in spite of these in- 

 dividual efforts, it cannot be said that we have made much 

 headway ; public interest in scientific research may still be 

 considered to be on a low level — certainly lower here than 

 in many other leading nations, and most decidedly lower 

 than is desirable in the best interests of our country. A 

 temporary flicker of excitement is caused when some sensa- 

 tional discovery is announced, or when some result of 

 immediate practical (commercial) value is made known, but 

 even in these cases the interest taken is only transitory 

 and is narrowed down to the itnmediate issue; the broad 

 cause which malces such results possible is lost sight of. 

 The steady, plodding work which culminates in great dis- 

 coveries is being carried on quite unheeded by the general 

 public, and the workers themselves are practically unknown 

 outside the ranks of science. Research as a " cult " is not 

 understood ; the national attitude towards the workers is 

 one of " payment by results " in the very narrowest sense 

 of the term. 



How this state of affairs is to be remedied is a knotty 

 question which I confess appears to me somewhat hopeless 

 of solution at the present time. It may be that by per- 

 sistent attack from within and the pressure of competition 

 from without the country will, in fact must sooner or 

 later, awaken to the situation. It may be that science 

 will have to become more self-assertive and make its in- 

 fluence felt as a political power. There is need here, as 

 has been often suggested, for a ininister corresponding to 

 the " Minister of Public Instruction," or the " Cultus- 

 Minister " of other countries. The newly fortned " British 

 Science Guild" may fairly be expected in the course of 

 time to help us in raising the level of public opinion 

 towards the importance of research, this being, in fact, 

 one of the primary objects for which this organisation has 

 been founded. 



The Jubilee of the Foundation of the Coal-tar Colour 

 Industrv and its Lessons. 



The exaltation of scientific research into an abstract 

 principle or " cult," which is the keynote of the remarks 

 which I have put together for your consideration on this 

 last opportunity when I shall have the honour of address- 

 ing you from the presidential chair, is, of course, a familiar 

 subject to all who keep in view the objects of a society 

 such as this. If I venture to formulate the principle some- 

 what more emphatically on this occasion, it is that the 

 international gathering, 'which took place here last summer 

 in honour of our distinguished past-president. Sir William 

 Perkin, and in celebration of the jubilee of the foundation 

 of the coal-tar colour industry, has given rise to many 

 considerations which are intimately associated with the 

 subject of this address. Although at that memorable 

 assembly the voice of the nations was raised in gratittjde 

 for and in recognition of the numerous benefits arising 

 from the establishment of a great industry, we must not 

 forget that below the chorus of praise and congratulation, 

 so "justly sounded in honour of the founder, there was 

 flowing an undercurrent of thought which, in some of the 

 addresses and speeches, found verbal expression— the 

 thought that this industrv owed its existence to scientific 

 research, and that it had been developed into its present 

 magnitude bv the never-ceasing applications of research. 

 Speaking generally, it may be said that all the great steps, 

 the new departures in the industry of coal-tar products, 

 have been the outcome of pioneering work carried on in 

 the first place without immediate reference to practical 

 results. -All honour to those who have developed these 

 results into manufacturing operations, but honour in the 

 first place to the scientific pioneers ! This is the real 

 lesson taught bv the celebrations of last July. It may he 

 of interest to consider in the next place how far this 

 lesson has been learnt here on the one hand by the scientific 

 public and on the other bv the general public. 



That the lesson has not been learnt by those who are 

 most immediately concerned, the manufacturers them- 

 selves, is sufficiently apparent when we compare the 

 enormous development of the industry in Germany with 

 its comparatively small development here and its decadence 

 in France, once an active centre and a successful coni- 

 pctitor with us in the manufacture of coal-tar colouring 



NO. 1966, VOL. 76] 



