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| "reviews 1. v.michurin: selected works. foreign languages publishing house. 'moscow, 1949. 406 pp. collet's. 15 \"he appearance of an english translation of the mort important 'of michurn's writings is umely in view of the widespread interest which bas been aroused by recent developments in biology im the soviet union, a study ofthis work is eaveatial for an understanding of the 'theoretical and practical trends in soviet biology to-lay. the reader 'must not however expect to find series of neatly plained \"itcal\" 'experiments leading to an equally neat series of theoretical conclusions. 'throughout his working life, which extended over period of sixty years, michuria was concermed with intensely practical problems, with the production of new and improved varieties of frit plants mitable {or cultivation in central and northern tussle. in the course of is immense labours he eared out thoasands of experiments and made tens of thousands of carefl obecrvations with this mn view. from al this practical labour sn experimentation he drew important theoretical 'conclusions which beeue fundamental to the development of his work. 'michurin's theoretical ideas emerge quite early from his writings even 'though thse are usally eat in the form of highly practical instrction 'or descriptions of his methods. he never lost sight of the importance af building up a corect theory with which to work, and like darwin, he 'based his theories on uhe closet observation of ature, especially a= revealed in practioa]agrialture. \"the practical sce of michurin's methods is undoubted, and itis interesting to learn that the united state department of agrielture 'wereso impressed that in the years 1011-1 they tied to induce michurin 'to-emigrste to americ, or at leat to sell all his varieties on favourable terms. these oller be turned down! lenin recognised the importaace of michurin's work and withthe eaablishment of the soviet government, hich michurin unhesitatingly weloomed, funds were made avilable to support his work. laboratories were set up, and in 148i the nurseree 'became the michurin central genetss laboratory, with michurin as dliretor and with a large sal. 'the material in this volume i conveniently arranged according to theme, and within each thematic section the arrangement is chrono. logical so that i is possible to follow the developmnat of micharin's ens a8 practical experince steadily eariehed them, the fit, autobio- araphical, section is particularly valuable in this respect aa it sunt 'arcs the way in which michurin advanced foes the ileaitc uheory of acclimstisution of grell, which proved complete failure in practice, through the stage of mass selection, sso unsuccessful, to his own d= 160 reviews se mete thee a eng ee aig, shere tel ie nema peor aims nate hcrgncnre nee sota suet ee na siva tpeeaceerans ae secretar aire ear ees etna ang eet ic ai cel print soe eet piotr pair ete ete bae tet nt ee ces pictorial eet yaa speey ete ee a ee tity, this iprenton coded and deepand by uw tear ahs bde e reper aan pega sane yme eee eae se ia ee seasaicna coee see yield avec of pein gual and to enzad the ara of southern shinaaece akarieciatetaer peregrine 'eeipog an comet nds uel he tee st > stee ce ncenton meneame se ciorndcieeh arknente shee microarray nonmtete ta ae iowtagrmninatccmsenmetina bnggigetcecracte cont enue gl sui ceseiteteacaee sees piece atest seviee siegen ae an a ee ee feet erent cae tne sas ean ts ae soman eeeeeemnce zee storia amecieae scoot tcicetmenirt gees fig gai inl hatanheneae ees iehopeicnietiorimtsine armas mae se : fy", | |
| "the modern quarterly 'the small nursery which he was establishing. by this incredible industry 'he was finally able to make the nursery se-sipporting and to give up his job on the railway. but his fe coatinued to be ove of poverty and privation, made harder by the attack of regis obseurantet and the utter indiference and even hoatlty ofthe tsarist ministry of agricul: 'tre. only the coming of socialism reieved him of material worries and made posible tremendous extension of his work and its application in the service of society. michurin supported the soviet goverament 'rom the first, and it shows the quality of his mind that he not only saw the vast possiblities of advance inherent in collective ageculture but 'that be linked th further development of his own work closay with the clletive farms. this elose relation betweea scientific investigation and practical agriculture has continued to be the source of stongth of caet agronomy, 'the mort fandamental contribution to biologial theory which aichurin makes is undoubtedly his treatment of adaptation. he reog> niged on the bass of his own practical rsults that the complex proces: 'of adaptation cannot be understood if its separated frm the proces: fof development. as prezeat points out in an introductory say to 'mickurin's colacted works (russian edition), this wad the idealistic mistake of lamark, which grell repeated, namely, to consider adapta- ton as a process apart from development, ose the mutual influence of organism and environment, with lamark the organism is tans tormal in order to develop afterwards, whercas with. mshurin. the 'organism only changes in the proces of development. michurin based himself on darwin's conception of the ongaaism which, developing and functioning only wihin the limite of the average conditions lid dow, bby the historical past, conitions never abwolutely repeated, is always deing transformed, sccurmalaing useful variations through a series of {generations by natural or artical selection. the problem of adaptation 'as thus approached by michurin in the sense of dialectical materialism st the unity of the organism and its environment. this dialectal 'pproach was instinctive, although much later in life he consciously 'died and accepted diaetis, 'order to adapt plants to new conditions, to change their hereditary constitution, the new environment most be allowed to actin the earliest stages of development, the 'and postembryonal stages. 'organisms are more plas, unt i, ave greater adaptive possiblitles, jn the earliest stages. hence michurla's esistence that {rom soed isthe best method of getting varieties adapted to ther ond tions of life. in particular he used hybeid seeds for taining since such plants exhibit greater adaptability in consequence oftheir de-stalised jered. many quotations could be given which summarise the methods hhe employed but a single one must sufice: \". .. the only correct tithod for solving the problem (of ereating new varietis) i to rave 182 reviews socal vaities for every district from seeds. furthermore, in order \"to improve thelr quality, i is necessary to hybridise the old hardy tocal \"varieties with the best foreign ooes. in the eases where there ere n0 | toca varieties... the hardy parent should be selected from among the ildigs that grow in eountrie with the most appropriate climatic con- \"ition. when pairing the parent plants the most distant and least 'lovely related farictes should be preferred beenuse . hybrids are 'diaized that most easily and completely became 'aapted' to the 'external conditions of new locality.\" \"ths the basic principle of michurin's operations was the changing of ihredity by means of envirenmental changes eting on the ently develop- 'mental sages of the organism it is this conscious use of the adaptive capacity of plants in order to change them in w desired direction which te new and distinguishing characterstic of his methods. michurin iakes it very clear thst he wes not a selectonst he never denied the importance ef mats election in appropriate circumstances but cat sidered that selection is nota sieve but postive method of wsing the 'aribiity of organisms in order to transform them. selection mast be linked with the \"shaken\" heredity caused by hytidisation and with subsequent training of the seedlings. thus michurin worked with enly fome tens of sodlings st a time and he complains with reference burbank (whom he nevertheless greatly admired) that some writers bad place his own woek \"in an extremely false light by pacing it on a par 'with the work of the late burbank, an advocate of planting many thousands.\" michurin's methods which he applied almost exclusively 0 'rit plants have been widely and suecesfully used in the soviet union, in plant breding. the work of lysenko and bis collaborator i trans: forming winter into spring and spring- into winter-cene repre- sents an extension of mictrin's methods and a striking confirmation of the corestness of his theoretial standpoint. furthermore, the concep- tion of heredity and of the organism-environment relation whieh lysenko puts forward i quite obviously a elarleation and deepening of conceptions which are sleady contained in michurin. ta tis connection it's itereting to note the penetrating observations which micharin 'made on the specie environmental requirements of plats. sach 'observations foreshadow a line of investigation to which soviet biologists hhave paid considerable tention eed which has eulmingted in lysenko's phasal theory of development. \"just ab the environment plays an active role inthe transformation of plants by man, co michurin considers that i plays a similar active role {n'nataral evolation. organisms are changed under the inuence of 'envinoament, but only in the course of development, bythe assimilation, 'ot new conditions through metabolimn. the creation of new plants and 'nial in agriealture does not difr in from their creation in hate, exeept uat the proces is contrlled and directed by man, 13", | |
| "the modern quarterly 'there area number of references to meadelism in michurin's works 'rom which it is obvious that he was ot attracted by it. the reasons for this form one ofthe most interesting aspects of michurin's thought. in the first pace be found that the mendelian laws of inheritance were of '0 asistance in the practical work of breeding, even ata rule-of thumb 'method of prediction they proved sles when dealing with fruit plant ihybrids, although it interesting to note that michunn recognises that the mendelian laws may quite well spply for other plants in certain 'reumstances. but his criticism of mendetism goes mach deeper than this in his view mendeliom is purely formal analysis whics neglects the specie biologieal nature of heredity. 'thus mendel appears to neglect of minimise the envionment hilt michurin found that environment bad s marked effet on the type of inheritance, which depended on the age ofthe parets crosed, the treatment to which the seeds were subjected, the environmental -fondtons in which the young plats were reared, ad so on. by varying 'the environmental conditions the character of the hybrid could be caused to deviate towards one ot other of its parents. an even more serious weakness of mendelsm, in michurn's opinion, ists failure to pay any attention tothe history of the genotype. micburin insists that great tention must be paid to the seldiion of pity for erosing on 8 hie torical\" bass since most influence is exerted by the older parent or the 'one with longer history in partcular conditions and therefore with ue 'more stable heredity. 'the correct selection of pair for hybridisation is problem which \"mendelism cannot correctly solve. tn questions of inheritance micbarin takes into account the degree of historically accumulated adaptability ofthe parents to definite conditions of development, the depres of here altay influence ofeach parent in given conditions, and the ewormous tole of the environment in fonaing the nature of the young organism, in other words, he attempts to give a materialist biological analysis of the parental genotypes, not formal mendelian acalyss, and to give @ biological estimate ofthe conditions of traning of the progeny. thus 'michurin's distant hybridisation f nether plece of mstifeation nor 4 simple mendelian combination: it is @ profound biological process lending to destabilise heredity and aa exsishment of the adaptive possibilities of the plant tn this way michurin began the materialist rtm of mendelism whieh was developed and completed by lyseako and other workers. he also contributed to this movement in another way by his numerous 'observations on stock-stion relations and the uto of grafting not mara {for propagation but asa means of influencing and improving inmatare fruit plants (by what be called the method of mentors), this nethod was 'used for example in the production of the kandil-kitaiks apple, which fs now a standard variety in the soviet unioa, michurin brings forwaad 164 reviews 'many examples of the way in which plant can be altered by grafting 'rovided i isin a sufieiently early phase of development. such examples of vegetative hybridisation and i practical appllentions led to great interest in this subject. as result soviet biologists have carried eat 'onserable arsount of work on the production and behaviour of vegetar 'eve hybrid. ths work forms par of the growing body of evidence which has le to the abandonment of th mendelian theory of heredity. ia 'order to secure hybridisation michatin employed a munuber of remarkable 'methods, the wwe of mixed pollen, vogtative approximation, repeated fertilisation, the use ofan intermediary, ete, which lead to highly inter 'sting and signiicant results. these metods have als been the starting- point for further investigations from which new views concerning the roces of fertisaton have arisen, which cannot be diseased here 'eis impossible n ashore review to do more san comment on a few aspects of michurn's work: perhaps enough has been said to indicate the relation between michurin and later developments in soviet bilogy snd to show how the germ is to be found in michuria. tete thus with justifcation thatthe new trends in biology have been given hi name, 'a glance through the report of the famous 1948 sesion of the lenin 'academy of agrultural sciences shows the extent to which michurinist 'techniques and theory now guide th practical work of soviet agrono- mists. the study of this faseinating book wall prove very belpl, and indeed indispensable, to all who wish to understand the nature of soviet biological theory to-day and how it has developed. the book contains a 'wealth of practical advice for ghose who wish to practice michurinist methods snd itis to be hoped that thove ho ean wil try them out for themed aus g. mozrox, 'the anglo soviet journal, vol. x, no.4, winter, 1049, quarterly jounal 'ot the s.c.r,, 14 kensington square, london, ws, 0d, is spa umber the angle itr eet the uit nowe su fe sev ura eet a sitet betel tak ety asters ce een pele bata matta wide soe uae na src prt ae fit fra ce a nto stat itetlng acount ee delgatioa's fo lacon oo oe 'utente cuny tae vein oes aa eee 15 gate oth sn may pe cet pele in prfeer chatto otis pentenaat res rae sena ac alr racy elton sore ase wee", | |
| "the modern quarterly 'the description of the tour makes it clear that the russian visitors id much by their pesence, thelfrankness, their humour and generosity 'of spirit to dispel the illusions prevalent about the life wad work of soviet intellectals.glushchenko maul a considerable pression on the meet. {ng of sientists, offen assembled in seritcal mod, to whom le spoke 'on soviet bislogy. kabalavaky won all bearts and teduead to pure fantasy the notion of soviet compoters at cowed and brow-besten \"aatists in ualform.\" not the least vaiuable side of the delegation's visit was the host of 'occasions for informal meeting with people especialy interested in tele comm subjects. a ser of erable photogaphs afford vival evidence ofthis 'the anglnsoviet journal prsts, in addition tothe two papers men- tioned, the lecture by academician velgin, the lender ofthe delegetion, 'on \"dialectical materialism and histareal science,\" second historial paper by dr h. matkovsky on \"historical science in the u.8.f.\" and 'bro papers on \"soviet literature\" and \"ukranian soviet litereture\" by alexei surkov and pavdo tyehina. 'to revert to glushchenko, the special interest of his paper les in the ear apd formal enumeration ofthe eight most important principles of 'tyvenko and their subsequent exposition point by point. tass & most 'valuable and indispensable summary of which we mere much in need, 'kabslevaky, in his paper on \"soviet muss,\" gives the clearest rat- ment on the little understood term \"forms\" that t have come 'across, and very cleely and usefully contrasts it with reali ints, 'the frew, as the report points out, devoted litle space to this important event. \"on discovering hat the delegation were ot sur: ronded by un iron cutai, the majority ofthe press sppeared to ise interest.\" this is an adiltional reason for ensuring the widest dstibac tion ofthis inue of the anglo-seolet journal, but all reers of mdern quarry wll want to read this important collection of edesses en to ihave uhem in permanent for, joux lew. 166" | |
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