The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-04-21
Ethylene Gas Works New Wonders Tn Plant World
Col. Thompson Endows $3,000,00O Plant For
 Experiments

SolnB pOtht0eS, Wn0 1lke I0 sleep III .Ine winter time. Science, which lately has been taking on a lot of new business, both above and below ground, is on the trail of the~slacker '''spud" with ethylene gas. Just a whisper of this new gas lands in potato bin like a four-alarm fire signal. They start sprouting frantically, although aroused at 2 o'clock in the morning.
 It is Colonel William Boyce Thomp- son---like that other great American financier, Frank Vanderlip, he is curious about many things-who is starting all this agitation; in the veg etable world, Colonel Thompson has partially. completed. $3,000.000 lab oratofy here, with an annual endow- ment of $250, 900, and an army of test sleuths who >Sre running down lot of sensational leads in plant circles. Having no libel suits to fear. they are making some astounding discloures."
 ! Important Business
 This business of stirring up the po- totoes is more important than it might seem at first, glance. The insistnce of the potato on getting its winter sleep seriously -has handicapped the potato industry. in the necessary interchange of seedlings between the tropics and the northern latitudes. For instance, potato harvesting time in Maine is po- tato planting time in Bermuda. The Bermuda planters have found that northern seedlings have greater vitality and yield-but there was the business of the long winter vacation. The Maine potatoes, sound asleep, routed in the ground. How to wake them up and get them to work? The problem was put up to Dr. William Crocker, director of the Thompson Institute.
 By extended research, Dr. Crocker found that ''shot' of ethylene gas served his purpose. Today he disclosed the results of his tests. Potatoes ex- posed to ethylene had sprouted into luxurious plants, now foot high. Those not so treated were still sleep ing in the ground The discovery has an immediate, practical significance of great importance to growers in the southern attitudes of the United Sta tes and the West Indies. As the ethylene treatment is simple and inexpensive, the hardy northenrn seedlings can here after be put to work in the south.
 Here's Button Trick" |. ] The magic button trick. is another mystifying turn in the ethylene reper- tOire. In cooperation. with Frank E. Denny, of the United States Department of Agriculture, Dr. Crocker has found the gas useful, not only in ripening oranges and lemons, but in solving the old problem of ''dis-buttoning" oranges. In Florida, the growers want the but ton off, on account of their proximity to markets. In California, they want the button left on. Dr. Crocker and Denny have found that in this new elaboration of the old button game ethylene can be made to play on eith- CT side. In other words, the gas, prop erly manipulated, will rivet the but ton on, and make California happy. or drop it off, and draw cheer from Flor. ida.
 In fact, ethylene seems to be an amiable and accommodating substance which is anxious to please everybody In the case of the potatoes, it serves as an alarm clock, but it first got into the limelight as a means of putting ! plants to sleep rather. than waking them up. A few years ago the proprietor of greenhouse found that his carna, tions wuOld not blossom. He stated his problem to Dr. Crocker, who was then head of the department of plant Physi- OlOgy of the University of Chicago. Dr. Crocker found a leak of Illuminating gas ill the greenhouse. This gas con tained one part of ethylene in 5000 000. It had put the carnations to sleep. In continued researches Dr. CrOcker found that by modifying the amount of the gas he could stimulate rather than retard the growth. An accidental fire in greenhouse in. the Azores rip ened the pineapples, and it is now q regular practice there to use smudges to induce ripening. The effect was due to the ethylene in the smoke.
 Do Practical Work.
 The experiments in ethylene consti- tute only one of scores of profound and at the same time practical-re- searches of the Boyce Thompson h. stitute. The institute was founded and endowed with a fund of $25O,OOO a year by Colonel William Boyce Thomp- son, widely known American financier and pbilanthropist, who was head of the American Red Cross mission to Russia in 1917. It occupies a nine acre, tract of Hand in Yonkers, and $700,000 has been expended on the newly. completed first unit of the lab Oratory and greenhouses. The completed group of buildings will involve an ex- penditure of nearly $3,000,0O0. In an nOuncing his plans for establishing the institute, Col. T% %mpsOn said:
 "The institute is the most complete ly equipped and staffed institution of the kind in the world. It is entirely non-commercial, and in the brief period of its operation already has given to the world scientific discoveries of the utmost importance"
 Tt is primarily research work that we are dOing," said Dr. Crocker to. day, but it must not be inferred from that that we have any the less concern for immediate practical results. It is merely that our main objective-cuttinR down waste, producing more food, and guarding against famine-leads us con. stantly and inevitably to bedrock re- search.
 5, Trap ASter Bug
 For instance, the disease of vel lows, afflicting asters, is one of { group of mosaic diseases affecting va riOus plants which had never been un derstOOd. One of our investigators, Dr l.. O. Kunkel, finally found that it was caused by an insect known as the browI leaf roller, which carries virus, just as the mosquito carries the yellow fever virus. The next question was whether the virus was protozOan, which made it necessary to assign a biologist to tho reasearch. Further investigation vii require the findings of an expert or animal tissue to clear up the exact ma ture of the virus and the means oi combating it.
 T cite this as an illustration of the qualifications of any basic scientific in quiry such as this, and it was to make possible a complete search of all these by-ways that the laboratory has beer equipped for work in plant pathology biology, chemistry and physics.
 Grew New Wheat