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Discussion.
Sir Theodore Rigg considered that the speaker had over-simplified the whole problem and that there was much more to it than had been stated. He pointed out that in China with the cultivation of the soya bean, nitrogen was brought into the soil. The Chinese were doing their best in regard to soil conservation, but probably their production was no more than that from the experimental plot at Rothamstead, which had been used continuously for the growing of wheat over the last sixty years. He stated that composting on its own could not replace the necessary minerals and trace elements which might be lacking or in short supply in the soil, and evidenced cobalt shortage in certain areas of the country which could not be made up by composting, however intensive, but where the addition of an extremely small amount of cobalt by “artificial” means would make the country perfectly satisfactory. Moreover, similar deficiencies could be remedied by artificially adding boron compounds to soils where this was in short supply. He stated that the comparatively high Chinese production in those areas where there was a satisfactory alluvial soil, warmth, and moisture could be increased by 25% by the addition of a little phosphate. He agreed that soil study could not be regarded entirely as chemical and that the micro-biological approach was necessary. In regard to bacteria alone, he pointed out that the “soil sickness” affecting tomato production in Nelson could be cured by sterilising the soil by means of steam or other means. This killed off at least a very high percentage of the bacteria present in the soil and thus allowed the return to that particular soil of productivity which had been greatly reduced by too high a bacterial content. He could not agree that the use of artificial fertilisers should be discontinued.
Sir Stanton Hicks, in reply, stated that he was not against the idea of using artificial fertilisers, but was inveighing against the waste of phosphorus which was so greatly needed by the soil, and which at present was almost entirely poured into the sea. He stated that good hygiene was not necessarily incompatible with the preservation of our wasted phosphorus. Composting kept the
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soil in good heart, but even if our human waste was preserved there would still be a need for the addition of phosphate, because so much was taken away from the soil, exported and lost to us. In regard to bush sickness, he was not convinced that this was merely due to deficiency of cobalt, and felt we could not give the ultimate answer merely by adding little bits of this and that, here and there, where these were found by chemical means to be in short supply He pointed out the virtue possessed by certain plants of collecting and concentrating elements which were present in infinitesimally small amount in their surroundings—a property which might be used to much greater extent than at present in remedying deficiencies.
Dr. McMeakin stated that he himself would be speaking out of turn on any medical matter, and he considered Sir Stanton Hicks, though an eminent man in the medical world, to be speaking without adequate authority on the subject he had chosen, and suggested he should see what was really being done by agriculturists in this country, as he was apparently unaware of the actual facts of the case. He stated that there was no country anywhere where comparatively so much was being done to use organic fertilisers as in New Zealand.
Sir Stanton Hicks replied that he was interested in human beings and not in the amount of butter-fat per acre which could be produced. He stated that the community in general was much more interested in the amount of butterfat, wool and meat which could be produced per acre and exported, than with the amount of stock, human and otherwise, which could be raised and maintained satisfactorily on a particular area of land. This was wrong and what was badly needed was a change in outlook, particularly so in the scientific field. The essential needs of this country were: more people per acre, more men, women and children self-supporting on the land—not more men in the town and fewer on the farms, but vice versa. He instanced the conditions in China and Japan, where the value of the land was in the number of human beings who could be raised on it, a matter in which it was very successful. He considered that the wars of the future, as the wars of the past, will be decided essentially by manpower, a point which we should take deeply to heart.
Mr. Keyes pointed out that the produce of the land which was exported from New Zealand was being used for maintaining people in Britain.
Sir Stanton Hicks stated that it was impossible satisfactorily for the land to maintain a group of people at a distance. The land must support the people living on it. He stated that he was greatly disappointed to find that, in spite of the evident need for home-produced food during the recent war, England still had so much unused land, that good land was still raising nothing but sheep, and that so much food had to be imported. He compared Japan, where no land on which anything would grow was allowed to remain unused, and where, even in the ruins of Hiroshima, every little piece of land was again being cultivated and nothing was allowed to waste.
The Chairman, Sir Charles Hercus, finally closed the discussion, pointing out that at the recent meeting in England, attended by economists from all over the world, one of the things which had struck him most had been the universal anxiety over the standard of living, the appalling malnutrition, and the amount of preventable disease present amongst these people quoted by Sir Stanton Hicks as living entirely on their own land, and using an agricultural method of the type recommended by him. He considered that we in New Zealand would not be happy to change our type of life for theirs.