CHOICER LEGS OF MUTTON.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3416, 6 January 1912, Page 10

CHOICER LEGS OF MUTTON.

UNIVERSITY EXPERIMENTS IN MENDELIAN LAM 7 .

In the latest arrangements for the expenditure of the money from the British Development Grant, quite an important part is to be played by Oxford and bv Cambridge. It has been settled, states the “Daily Mail,” that each takes up the study of a particular branch of agriculture. Cambridge, which has taken so very leading a part in the breding of new wheats, will receive some £4OOO or £SOOO a year to encourage this study. Experiments now in progress suggest that their men of science may be able to do for animals what they are doing for plants, and by working on the Mendelian law of heredity produce both animals and plants that may have the peculiar virtues desired: sheep that provide legs of mutton exactly to the gourmet’s taste, or wool of finest merino quality, just as the wheats have been made of a particular “strength” and ability to resist disease. While Cambridge is studying these subjects Oxford is to take up the economics of agriculture and will receive £ISOO a year. The agricultural school is being developed especially with a view to teach estate management to those who own or will own property, and it is hoped that a large area of land may be acquired for "practical work.

In a similar way the whole of agriculture science is to be studied in departments by some dozen or so colleges, each college taking one branch of science. The Itothamsted experimental station, for example, which is doing work famous all over the world, will doubtless receive a grant for the study of the soil ; and here it is hoped that science is one the edge of some curious secrete as to the way plants are nourished and the “beneficent bacteria” flourish.