Science: Foundations and Pineapples

There is a type of psychological test by word associations, in which an examiner calls a work and the examinee answers with the first word that comes into his head. The chances are that if an average person were given such a test today and the word “Rockefeller” shot at him, he would reply either “rich” or “oil.” But if the same thing were done a century hence, it is a good guess that the average person would answer “Rockefeller” with the word “foundation.” Sic transit gloria pecuniac. So endure the benefits of science.

It was perhaps with this in mind that a New York millionaire set up a new foundation. He is Colonel William Boyce Thompson. He has an estate on North Broadway in Yonkers. Across the street from his home, he opened last week the first buildings of his foundation. The foundation is known as the William Boyce Thompson Institute of Plant Research. Colonel Thompson has endowed it with about $5,000,000. The buildings already erected—a research laboratory and greenhouses—cost about three-quarters of a million and are only the nucleus of a larger group to be erected.

The object of the Institute is to do for plant life what the Rockefeller Institute “does for human life. It is to delve into the foundations of the science of botany, carrying on its work in pure science, from which it is believed in the long run that the greatest practical results will spring. Prof. Vernon H. Blackman of the Imperial College of Science and Technology of London, in a speech at the opening of the new building, indicated the significance of some of the work which the Institute will undertake.

The distinguished guests at the opening of the Institute included Dr. Leo H. Baekeland (TIME, Sept. 22), Joseph P. Day, E. D. Ball (Director of Scientific Work, Department of Agriculture), Arthur Brisbane, Will H. Hays.

A typical example of the kind of work that may be expected from the Institute was recently accomplished by Dr. William Crocker, the Institute’s director. Nursing an anemic pineapple, a jaundiced, sickly, inarticulate pineapple, back to health was the task that confronted Dr. Crocker.

The chief pineapple plantations of the U. S. are in Porto Rico and Hawaii. In both, a disease has been afflicting the luscious fruit. It made their leaves yellow and sickly looking. It diminished the yield. Research discovered that this was a deficiency disease. The poor pineapples were starving for the want of iron, the ingredient which makes leaves green and promotes plant metabolism. But when the soil of the regions affected was inspected, plenty of iron was found. Further research disclosed that the iron was made unassimilable to the plants, in Porto Rico by an excess of lime in the soil, in Hawaii by an excess of manganese. Experiments were made in feeding iron. It was found that 3,000 Ibs. of iron sulphate per acre added to the soil made no difference whatever; the lime or manganese “locked it all up.” But by taking 50 Ib. per acre of the same iron sulphate, and spraying it on the leaves of the plants the desired object was accomplished.

Transferring the same method from the pineapple to the pine tree, similar results were obtained in Federal nurseries in the West afflicted with alkaline soil which brought about the same ironstarvation in pine seedlings.