Dr. John Wishart, Professor _of Agricultural Statisti¢s at Cambridge University, arrived here on Monday in the s. Empress of Russia from England.
Alter a few days here he will proceed to Nanking where he will remain for four months lecturing on the mathematical study of agricultural experimental work. Leaders in China's modern research into agricultural rehabilitation are also expected to foregather in the capital in order to avail themselves of this opportunity of widening their experience under the guidance of Dr. Wishart with whom they are expected to dis~ cuss the endless problems of their work, Dr. Wishart left England at the invitation of the Minister of Industry, Mr. Chen Kung-po, and is coming in connection with' the remarkable branch of work maintained by the Ministry, the National Agricultural Research Bureau.
While primarily a mathematician, Dr, Wishart has had peculiar experi-fence in Lis application to agricultural Statistics in that for a time he worked in close collaboration with the founder of the Rothamsted Experimental Station in England, Mr. R. A. Fisher. 'A. Scotsman, educated" at Perth Academy and later in Edinburgh, Dr. 'Wishart is still a comparatively young man for the responsibilities and tine lions he has gained. He is only 46 but has been an assistant in the Galton Eugenie Laboratory of the London University, from where, after three years' experience during which time the head of that laboratory was the statistician of world repute, Dr. Karl Pearson, he went to serve' in 1927 as professor of mathematics in the Imperial Institute in London and later as the statistician in the Rothamsted Station.
Speclat Contribution for Ageieulture was mainly due to his efforts that after 1925 the world was able to apply mathematics for field experiments in agriculture. Of chief Importance perhaps, in this connec ion, is his contribution towards. the application of the method of analysis of variance in. field experiments, Apart from applied mathematics, Dr. Wishart has also gained recognition theorist in statistics and isa member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, member of the Committee of the Royal Society of Statistics of England and a member of the Mathematical Society of London. His writings of thesis and articles on his special studies are considerable, To the layman, however, who thinks mathematics' useful only for the "high brow" and that agriculture is another method of spelling farm: ing, the importance of Dr. Wishart visit may nol be apparent.
It is possible to live in Shanghai and Jose sight altogether of the fact that the future of China is inevitably dependent on the scientific development of agriculture. The Chines peasant hax many good points an has never been acctised of being a poor farmer but he has not yet had the benefit of those recent scientific developments which have increased crop production in so many parts of the world. China is a vast country and in spite of the efforts of many scientific workers in Nanking, Peking, and Canton the production per mow of the chief crops in China has not increased during recent years. Agricultural progress is slow when country is disturbed.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.