SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
EMPIRE COTTON-GROWING COMMITTEE.—SCHEME OF 
ORGANIZATION. 
During the interval which has elapsed since the publication of its 
report, the Empire Cotton-growing Committee has given consideration 
to the measures which ought to be taken to carry into effect the recom- 
mendations made therein. The more important of these recommenda- 
tions were referred to in Science and Industry (Vol. 2, No. 3, p. 141), 
and included provision for pure research in such subjects as plant 
physiology, plant genetics, mycology, and entomology, and provision 
also for post-graduate studentships attached to these and other Chairs, 
by means of which promising men can be trained in methods of 
research. ; ; 
The scheme of organization is being prepared in consultation with 
the Board of Trade. It is probable that a Board of Trustees will be 
incorporated under the Royal Charter to hold the funds available, and 
to release them as required by the administrative body. Research and 
education will be fostered and assisted, but the matter of most pressing 
importance, and which will absorb most of the money available, is the 
strengthening of the staffs of the Agricultural Departments of Colonies 
and Protectorates where cotton is a possible crop. by adding to the 
staffs trained men, who will give their whole, or their main, attention 
to cotton. The efforts of the Agricultural Departments in several of 
the Colonies and Protectorates to introduce improved seed and to 
maintain purity of strains will be supported and extended. Means of 
transport will also be .systematically studied. The immediate work 
of the Committee is to obtain the ratification of the 6d. levy by the 
two masters’ federations and the two cotton associations, and to 
complete the technical details necessary to put it into force. 
INSECT PARASITES—A SUCCESSFUL INVESTIGATION. 
The Experiment Station of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Associa- 
_ tion has published a report entitled “ Philippine Wasp Studies,” which 
contains, among other things, particulars of the work undertaken with 
_the definitely economic object of procuring natural enemies of the 
beetle Anomala Orientalis, which, by reason of the havoe wrought in the 
larval stages on the roots of the sugar-cane, is a serious pest in the 
plantations, and was causing heavy losses in the island of Oahu, Hawaii. 
The quest of the entomologists was entirely successful, and through 
their labours the foe appears to have been vanquished, with the result 
that a large saving has been effected of one of our most valuable 
articles of food. The ally which the entomologists summoned to the 
aid of the sugar planters was the “wasp” Scolia Manilw, which is a 
small black and yellow insect which occurs abundantly in the 
Philippines. The females possess the power of detecting the presence 
of certain subterranean beetle grubs, and having located their victim, 
dig down to it and deposit on its ventral surface an ege, from which 
there soon emerges a larve that devours the beetle grub.. Tt is stated 
that the wasps established themselves with such success, and increased 
so rapidly, that they are now more abundant near Hondlulu than at their 
native. place, while the pest Anomala Orientalis is vanishing so satis~ 
factorily as to cause wonder how the wasp maintains itself; © > 
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