The Fancelli sisters' gym and health bar

The Fancelli sisters were devastated recently when their landlord put up the rent on their shop.  They have had a successful time over the last twelve months, but now they have been forced to move on.  Regular readers may recall that the sisters originally ran their castle museum, until they were forced out by a malicious council by-laws inspector.

Now an even more savage blow has fallen upon them.  They left their castle in despair and opened up a corner store and coffee shop, while continuing with a few of their more prized sidelines, like their herb-enriched tomato sauce, second-hand goods, seedlings and some most unusual home-made and highly illegal liqueurs.  It was the liqueurs which were their undoing, as the landlord discovered what they were doing, and tried to blackmail them.  Being women of principle, the sisters left, taking almost everything with them: the prawn heads under the floor boards are something we need not go into …

Now they have taken over a bankrupt gymnasium in the middle of our suburb's shopping centre, and set up their business there.  They have evicted the Coke machine, but the taller Miss Fancelli is continuing her tradition of drastic tea-brewing.  Over the past year, the shorter Miss Fancelli has become a true master of the espresso coffee machine, in between offering sculpture and plumbing courses for the elderly at the local technical college.

I am delighted to be able to bring my readers  news of the world's first fluid-computer wall-mounted coffee machine and sculpture, which is now beginning to take shape on the highest wall of the converted squash courts.

The essential principle is binary logic.  As a fluid passes from the stem of a Y junction to the two upper arms, it will usually flow into one arm only, unless it is given a nudge, after which it flows into the other arm until nudges again.  This simple bistable unit forms the basis of the coffee machine, with sensors shunting weak coffee back through the grounds, and others pushing cool coffee back through a heating unit.

That, at least, was the starting point.  With the Fancellis, nothing stays simple for long, and the logic units started to multiply.  They replaced the original pipes with clear glass, added more controls to maintain a supply of hot filtered water, fitted a solar-powered peristaltic pump, and began to plot serious computing power.  By the end of the year, they expect to have something with about the same power and usefulness as the first Altair microcomputer, but a great deal more aesthetic charm.

At the moment, they have to use mains power to drive the pump on cloudy days and after dark, but they have hinted to me that they are working on a couple of pleasing solutions.  Given that their favourite movie is The African Queen, I suspect that it will involve steam in some form.

Other related matters: 
The Giant Dung Beetle
The Yandackworroby Cup
The Yandackworroby Pub
The Fancelli sisters' castle
The Fancelli sisters' store
Bringing in the polyestas

 

Can we trust statistics?

This chapter began as two radio talks delivered on the ABC, almost thirty years ago. My friend Peter Chubb asked me if I had addressed these issues, and I said that I hadn’t, but that I had provided a link to the text of the talk. Two nights later, I decided to add it, the next night, I rewrote it.

There is enough information here to let readers try the following exercise in Evil Statistics out for themselves.

*

Boris, Don and Tony went fishing, and caught ten fish. Four weighed 1 kg, two were 2 kg, two were three kg, one was 6 kg, and one was 10 kg. They reported that the average was 1 kg, 2 kg and 3 kg, and all were telling a sort of truth. Boris reported the mode, the most common mass, Don reported the median, the mass of the middle two fish, Tony reported the mean, adding all the masses and dividing by ten. Each value was true, each was different.

It all sounds a bit like “Lies, damned lies, and statistics”, but who first said that? The popular myth is that it was Mr. Disraeli, the well-known politician, but many quite reputable and reliable reference books blame author Mark Twain.

It turns out that it was first published by Twain all right, but Twain attributed the line to Disraeli, and you won't find the story in any earlier publication than Twain's autobiography. In short, Mark Twain made the whole thing up! Disraeli never spoke those words: Twain invented them all, but he wanted the joke to have a greater force, and so gave the credit to an English politician.

Twain wasn't only well-known for his admiration of a good “Stretcher” (of the truth, that is), he even lied when he was talking about lies, and his name wasn't even Mark Twain, but Samuel Clemens! Now would you buy a used statistic from this man?

Last century, when Disraeli is supposed to have made the remark, statistics were just numbers about the State. The state of the State, all summed up in a few simple numbers, you might say.

Now governments being what they are, or were, there was more than a slight tendency in the nineteenth century to twist things just a little, to bend the figures a bit, to bump up the birth rate, or smooth out the death rate, to fudge here, to massage there, to adjust for the number you first thought of, to add a small conjecture or maybe to slip in the odd hypothetical inference.

It was all too easy to tell a few small extravagances about one's armaments capacity, or to spread the occasional minor numerical inexactitude about whatever it was rival nations wanted to know about, and people did just that. Even today, when somebody speaks of average income, if you don’t smell fish, at least remember them, and ask if that’s the mean, the median or the mode.

When I was young, I smoked cigarettes, but the cost and the health risks convinced me, so I stopped, back in 1971. Smokers think we reformed smokers are tiresome people who keep on at them, trying to get them to stop as well.

The non-smokers say those who still puff smoke are the tiresome people, who can't see the carcinoma for the smoke clouds, who deny any possibility of any link between smoking and anything. Like the tobacco pushers, the smokers dismiss the figures contemptuously as “only statistics”. The really tiresome smoker will even say a few unkind things about the statisticians who are behind the figures. Or about the statisticians who lie behind the figures.

By the end of the 19th century, statistics were no longer the mere playthings of statesmen, they were way to clump large groups of related facts into convenient chunks. If you can see how the statistics were arrived at, perhaps you can trust them.

At one stage in my career, I led a gang of people who gathered statistics and messed about with numbers, but we preferred to be called ‘number-crunchers’. People say a statistician is “somebody who's rather good around figures, but who lacks the personality to be an accountant”.

They speak of the statistician who drowned in a lake with an average depth of 15 cm. We are told that a statistician collects data and draws confusions, or draws mathematically precise lines from an unwarranted assumption to a foregone conclusion. They say “X uses statistics much as a drunkard uses a lamp-post: rather more for support than for illumination”.

Crusty old conservatives give us a bad name, pointing out that tests reveal that half our nation's school leavers to be below average, which is true, but it is equally true that the vast majority of Australians have more than the average number of legs. All you need is one Australian amputee!

If somebody does a Little Jack Horner with a pie that's absolutely bristling with statistical items and they produce just one statistical plum, I won't be impressed at all: the plum's rather more likely to be a lemon, anyhow. 

The statistics have to be plausible and significant. Later, I will show you a statistical link between podiatrists and public telephones: this is obviously nonsense, and we will ignore it. There is no logical reason for either to influence the other.

Still, unless there is a plausible reason why X might cause Y, it's all very interesting, and I'll keep a look-out, just in case a plausible reason pops up later, but I won't rush to any conclusion. Not just yet, I won't.

First, I will check on the likelihood of a chance link, something we call statistical significance. After all, if somebody claims to be able to tell butter from margarine, you wouldn't be too convinced by a single successful demonstration, would you? Well, perhaps you might be convinced: certain advertising agencies think so, anyway.

If you tossed a coin five times, you wouldn't think it meant much if you got three heads and two tails, unless you were using a double-headed coin, maybe. If somebody guessed right three, or even four, times out of five, on a fifty-fifty bet, you might still want more proof.

You should, you know, for there's a fair probability it was still just a fluke, a higher probability than most people think. There's about one chance in six of correctly guessing four out of five fifty-fifty events. Here is a table showing the probabilities of getting zero to five correct from five tosses:

zero right	one right	two right	three right	four right	five right
1/32	5/32	10/32	10/32	5/32	1/32

 The clever reader may notice a resemblance to Pascal’s triangle here!

Now back to the butter/margarine study. Getting one right out of one is a fifty-fifty chance, while getting two right out of two is a twenty five per cent chance, still a bit too easy, maybe. So you ought to say “No, that's still not enough. I want to see you do it again!”.

Statistical tests work in much the same way. They keep on asking for more proof until there's less than one chance in twenty of any result being just a chance fluctuation. The thing to remember is this: if you toss a coin often enough, sooner or later you'll get a run of five of a kind.

As a group, scientists have agreed to be impressed by anything rarer than a one in twenty chance, quite impressed by something better than one in a hundred, and generally they're over the moon about anything which gets up to the one in a thousand level. That's really strong medicine when you get something that significant.

There. Did you spot the wool being pulled down over your eyes, did you notice how the speed of the word deceives the eye, the ear, the brain and various other senses? Did you feel the deceptive stiletto, slipping between your ribs? We test statistics to see how “significant” they are, and now, hey presto, I'm asserting that they really are significant. A bit of semantic jiggerypokery, in fact.

And that's almost as bad as the sort of skullduggery people get up to when they're bad-mouthing statistics. Even though something may be statistically significant, that's a long way away from the thing really being scientifically significant, or significant as a cause, or significant as anything else, for that matter.

Statistics make good servants but bad masters. We need to keep them in their places, but we oughtn't to refuse to use statistics, for they can serve us well. Now you are ready to object when I assert that all the podiatrists in New South Wales seem to be turning into public telephone boxes in South Australia, and it all began with Florence Nightingale. Most people think of her as the founder of modern nursing, but as part of that she created ways to use statistics to pinpoint facts.

After her name was made famous, directing nursing in the Crimean war, she returned to London in 1857, and started to look at statistics, and the way they were used. She wrote a pamphlet called “Mortality in the British Army”, and the very next year, she was elected to the newly formed Statistical Society.

She looked at deaths in hospitals, and demanded that they keep their figures in the same way. The Statistical Congress of 1860 had, as its principal topic, her scheme for uniform hospital statistics. It isn’t enough to say Hospital X loses more patients than Hospital Y does, so therefore Hospital X is doing the wrong thing.

We need to look at the patients at the two hospitals, and make allowances for other possible causes. We have to study the things, the variables, which change together. Statistics, remember, are convenient ways of wrapping a large amount of information up into a small volume. A sort of short-hand condensation of an unwieldy mess of bits and pieces.

And one of the handiest of these short-hand describers is the correlation coefficient, a measure of how two variables change at the same time, the one with the other. Now here I'll have to get technical for a moment. You can calculate a correlation coefficient for any two variables, things like number of cigarettes smoked, and probability of getting cancer.

The correlation coefficient is a simple number which can suggest how closely related two sets of measurements really are. It works like this: if the variables match perfectly, rising and falling in perfect step, the correlation coefficient comes in with a value of one. But if there's a perfect mismatch, where the more you smoke, the smaller your chance of surviving, then you get a value of minus one.

With no match at all, no relationship, you get a value somewhere around zero. But consider this: if you have a whole lot of golf balls bouncing around together on a concrete floor, quite randomly, some of them will move together, just by chance.

There’s no cause, nothing in it at all, just a chance matching up. And random variables can match up in the same way, just by chance. And sometimes, that matching-up may have no meaning at all. This is why we have tests of significance. We calculate the probability of getting a given correlation by chance, and we only accept the fairly improbable values, the ones that are unlikely to be caused by mere chance.

We aren’t on safe ground yet, because all sorts of wildly improbable things do happen by chance. Winning the lottery is improbable, though the lotteries people won't like me saying that. But though it's highly improbable, it happens every day, to somebody. With enough tries, even the most improbable things happen.

So here's why you should look around for some plausible link between the variables, some reason why one of the variables might cause the other. But even then, the lack of a link proves very little either way. There may be an independent linking variable.

Suppose smoking was a habit which most beer drinkers had, suppose most beer drinkers ate beer nuts, and just suppose that some beer nuts were infected with a fungus which produces aflatoxins that cause slow cancers which can, some years later, cause secondary lung cancers.

In this case, we'd get a correlation between smoking and lung cancer which still didn't mean smoking actually caused lung cancer. And that's the sort of grim hope which keeps those drug pushers, the tobacco czars going, anyhow. It also keeps the smokers puffing away at their cancer sticks.

It shouldn't, of course, for people have thrown huge stacks of variables into computers before this. The only answer which keeps coming out is a direct and incontrovertible link between smoking and cancer. The logic is there, when you consider the cigarette smoke, and how the amount of smoking correlates with the incidence of cancer. It's an open and shut case.

I'm convinced, and I hope you are too. Still, just to tantalise the smokers, I'd like to tell you about some of the improbable things I got out of the computer in the 1980s. These aren't really what you might call damned lies, and they are only marginally describable as statistics, but they show you what can happen if you let the computer out for a run without a tight lead.

Now anybody who's been around statistics for any time at all knows the folk-lore of the trade, the old faithful standbys, like the price of rum in Havana being highly correlated with the salaries of Presbyterian ministers in Massachusetts, and the Dutch (or sometimes it's Danish) family size which correlates very well with the number of storks' nests on the roof.

More kids in the house, more storks on the roof. Funny, isn't it? Not really. We just haven't sorted through all of the factors yet. The Presbyterian rum example is the result of correlating two variables which have increased with inflation over many years.

You could probably do the same with the cost of meat and the average salary of a vegetarian, but that wouldn't prove anything much either. In the case of the storks on the roof, large families have larger houses, and larger houses in cold climates usually have more chimneys, and chimneys are what storks nest on. So naturally enough, larger families have more storks on the roof. With this information, the observed effect is easy to explain, isn't it?

There are others, though, where the explanation is less easy. Did you know, for example, that Hungarian coal gas production correlates very highly with Albanian phosphate usage? Or that South African paperboard production matches the value of Chilean exports, almost exactly?

Or did you know the number of iron ingots shipped annually from Pennsylvania to California between 1900 and 1970 correlates almost perfectly with the number of registered prostitutes in Buenos Aires in the same period? No, I thought you mightn't.

These examples are probably just a few more cases of two items with similar natural growth, linked in some way to the world economy, or else they must be simple coincidences. There are some cases, though, where, no matter how you try to explain it, there doesn't seem to be any conceivable causal link. Not a direct one, anyhow.

There might be indirect causes linking two things, like my hypothetical beer nuts. These cases are worth exploring, if only as sources of ideas for further investigation, or as cures for insomnia. It beats the hell out of calculating the cube root of 17 to three decimal places in the wee small hours, my own favourite go-to-sleep trick.

Now let's see if I can frighten you off listening to the radio, that insomniac's stand-by. Many years ago, in a now-forgotten source, I read that there was a very high correlation between the number of wireless receiver licences in Britain, and the number of admissions to British mental institutions.

At the time, I noted this with a wan smile, and turned to the next taxing calculation exercise, for in those far-off days, all correlation coefficients had to be laboriously hand-calculated. It really was a long time ago when I read about this effect.

It struck me, just recently, that radio stations pump a lot of energy into the atmosphere. In America, the average five-year-old lives in a house which, over the child's life to the age of five, has received enough radio energy to lift the family car a kilometre into the air. That's a lot of energy.

Suppose, just suppose, that all this radiation caused some kind of brain damage in some people. Not all of them necessarily, just a susceptible few. Then, as you get more licences for wireless receivers in Britain, so the BBC builds more transmitters and more powerful transmitters, and more people will be affected. And so it is my sad duty to ask you all: are the electronic media really out to rot your brains? Will cable TV save us all?

Presented in this form, it's a contrived and, I hope, unconvincing argument. Aside from anything else, the radiation is the wrong wave-length and cannot change any cells. My purpose in citing these examples is to show you how statistics can be misused to spread alarm and despondency. But why bother?

Well, just a few years ago, problems like this were rare. As I mentioned, calculating just one correlation coefficient was hard yakka in the bad old days. Calculating the several hundred correlation coefficients you would need to get one really improbable lulu was virtually impossible, so fear and alarm seldom arose.

That was before the day of the personal computer and the hand calculator. Now you can churn out the correlation coefficients faster than you can cram the figures in, with absolutely no cerebral process being involved.

As never before, we need to be warned to approach statistics with, not a grain, but a shovelful, of salt. The statistic which can be generated without cerebration is likely also to be considered without cerebration. Which brings me, slowly but inexorably to the strange matter of the podiatrists, the public telephones, and the births.

Seated one night at the keyboard, I was weary and ill at ease. I had lost one of those essential connectors which link the parts of one's computer. Then I found the lost cord, connected up my computer, and fed it a huge dose of random data.

I found twenty ridiculously and obviously unrelated things, so there were one hundred and ninety correlation coefficients to sift through. That seemed about right for what I was trying to do.

When I was done, I switched on the printer, and sat back to wait for the computer to churn out the results of its labours. The first few lines of print-out gave me no comfort, then I got a good one, then nothing again, then a real beauty, and so it went: here are my cunningly selected results. I have simply used, for good reasons, the methods of the crooks and con-men.

	Tasmanian birth rate	SA public phones	NSW podiatrist registrations
Tasmanian birth rate	1	+0.94	-0.96
SA public phones	+0.94	1	-0.98
NSW podiatrist registrations	-0.96	-0.98	1

Well of course the podiatrists and phones part is easy. Quite clearly, New South Wales podiatrists are moving to South Australia and metamorphosing into public phone boxes. Or maybe they're going to Tasmania to have their babies, or maybe Tasmanians can only fall pregnant in South Australian public phone booths.

Or maybe codswallop grows in computers which are treated unkindly. Figures can't lie, but liars can figure. I would trust statistics any day, so long as I can find out where they came from, and I'd even trust statisticians, so long as I knew they knew their own limitations. Most of the professional ones do know their limitations: it's the amateurs who are dangerous.

I'd even use statistics to choose the safest hospital to go to, if I had to go. But I'd still rather not go to hospital in the first place. After all, statistics show clearly that more people die in the average hospital than in the average home.

The original version is here:

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~macinnis/ockhams/stats.htm.

Science Playwiths 1.

I am about to sign a contract for a new book which I want to be called Science Playwiths, because it originated in a long-running web site of that name. It covers STEAM: Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics. Here's a first sample, about curious number facts.

 *

One estimate of the size of the entire universe puts its radius at 3 x 10²³ times larger than the size of the observable universe. That is almost exactly half the value of Avogadro’s number, which every good chemist knows to be 6.022 x 10²³. So what?

The speed of light in terafurlongs per fortnight is 1.803, close enough for government work to the metric equivalent of a fathom, showing that any measured value can be given almost any number by a cunning choice of units. Any reasoning based on the coincidence of two values needs to be questioned closely to see if the coincidence is just, well, a coincidence—or the work of somebody using peculiar units to get a result.

For example, the number of islands in the Hawaiian island chain is 137, and the ratio 1/137, often referred to as alpha, is the fine structure constant in physics. This value represents the probability that an electron will emit or absorb a photon. It is the square of the charge of the electron divided by the speed of light times Planck’s constant, and it is just a number: there are no dimensions or units involved at all.

The significance of alpha was first spelled out in 1915 by a physicist named Arnold Sommerfeld—at the time, measurement errors made the value closer to 136—and physics ever since has been littered with efforts to explain the number.

The most famous attempt was that of Sir Arthur Eddington, a prominent astronomer who believed that such constants could be used to produce a theory of the universe. He built a huge 16-dimensional equation full of these constants and claimed that alpha could be calculated from the number of terms: (16² - 16)/2 + 16, or 136.

Unfortunately, experiments quickly showed that alpha was really closer to 137. Eddington was not dismayed. He said he had forgotten to add one more factor, alpha itself, and made the value 137. For this, Punch magazine dubbed him Sir Arthur Adding-One.

Eddington was not deterred. Proudly he proclaimed that the firmament contains exactly (137 - 1) x 2²⁵⁶ protons. In 1938, he declared:

I believe there are 15 747 724 136 275 002 577 605 653 961 181 555 468 044 717 914 527 116 709 366 231 425 076 185 631 031 296 protons in the universe and the same number of electrons.

Of course, he may have been right; I have not yet been able to count them all, and it’s hard enough trying to find the value of 2²⁵⁶.

Of cubes and Smart Lazy

As I grow more into Advanced Middle Age, so I am attending to the leftovers, things like my Playwiths web site. I was amazed to discover last year that this had drawn in 4 million visitors.

OK, it's been going since about 1995, but 170,000 visitors a year isn't shabby for what began as a single page, constructed as a teaching tool for teachers from my feeder schools. As you can see if you look, it grew.

Anyhow, last year, I was on a train to Fairy Meadow to have lunch with some Illawarra schoolkids (it's an annual gig), and it struck me that there was probably a book in it.  On the train I had been ruminating on the fact that I had three more books that I would like to get done, but adding this one to the list made good sense. I got out the notebook and sketched an outline.

Six months later, it's largely done, but this note is about a bit of maths that hit me this morning, that just had to go in. Yes, I'm still fiddling, even as I pitch the book, and the writing, plus the fiddling, explain the dearth of posts here.

First, by way of background, I play with numbers to put myself to sleep or just to relax. In the dentist's chair, I calculate the square or cube root of a prime number (usually 17) in my head. It's just the way I am.

On the side, I know things that are interesting, like the story of Ramanujan and the number 1729, but I posed a question on the site and in the book: how can you use those four numerals in that precise order to create a sum generating each of the integers up to 50 (sums like -17 + 29 = 12, or 1 - 7 - 2 + 9 = 1).  Here are some of the harder answers to the game of 1729.

The original thing that got me interested in 1729 was that Srinivasa Ramanujan famously called it the smallest number that is the sum of two cubes in two ways (1^3 + 10^3 = 9^3 + 10^3), but during the writing of the book, I realised that this is not the case. Here's the proof:

6^3 + (-5)^3 = 4^3 + 3^3 = 91.

Well, that's interesting, but I happen to know that 1729=7x13x19, so it has three factors in arithmetic progression, which is interesting, but 91=7x13, which is Interesting.

With me so far? This morning, as the currawongs shredded the pre-dawn calm this morning, I began thinking about the simple pattern of differences between successive squares. I can illustrate this best with a snippet of spreadsheet:

Now why did I generate that, and how? The why: I am Smart Lazy, which means using available tools. The how: here are the codes I used in Excel, in a smaller snippet:

Entering the code is easy, if you use the Fill Down and Fill Right commands in Excel: look them up.

Well that table of manipulated squares has some nice patterns, but being a fiddler, I moved to cubes. This time, you see the codes first: notice the highlighted cells.

Can clever people see how little I had to change in the spreadsheet? That's what Smart Lazy is about! Look at the codes below to work out what diff(1), diff(2) etc. are about.

Notice that I have highlighted certain cells. The 7, 19 and 91, highlighted in yellow, are INTERESTING, but they may be just coincidence, and those do happen if you push enough numbers around. Here's a short quote from the book

The speed of light in terafurlongs per fortnight is 1.803, close enough for government work to the metric equivalent of a fathom, showing that any measured value can be given almost any number by a judicious choice of units. Any reasoning based on the coincidence of two values needs to be questioned closely to see if the coincidence is just, well, a coincidence—or the work of somebody using peculiar units to get a result.

For example, the number of islands in the Hawaiian island chain is 137, and the ratio 1/137, often referred to as alpha, is the fine structure constant in physics. This value represents the probability that an electron will emit or absorb a photon. It is the square of the charge of the electron divided by the speed of light times Planck’s constant, and it is just a number: there are no dimensions or units involved at all.

The significance of alpha was first spelled out in 1915 by a physicist named Arnold Sommerfeld—at the time, measurement errors made the value closer to 136—and physics ever since has been littered with efforts to explain the number.

Meanly, I have left out all the best bits of that story: you'll have to watch out for the book. No publisher yet, but I am pitching Playwiths at the moment.

Now go back to the other numbers, the ones highlighted in blue, all of which can be expressed in terms of the sums or differences of cubes.

117 = 5^3-2^3

217 = 6^3+1^3

513 = 8^3+1^3

728 = 9^3-1^3

999 = 10^3-1^3

1027 = 10^3+3^3

1736 = 12^3+2^3

Coincidence? I doubt it, but I have no idea why it happens. I’m not saying how I did it, but of the first 2000 integers, 150 of them can be expressed as the sum (or difference) of two cubes. I will admit to using both a spreadsheet and a word processor with a SORT function.

Still, the book is called Playwiths: why not play with it?

PS: there are other patterns there that I have left for others to discover. I didn't miss them: the margins of this page were too narrow for them to all fit in. Try 208 and 1216 in the diff(4) column, for starters...

 The book is called Playwiths. Play with it!

The True Opposite of a Luddite

Well, I've been flat-out getting two books out the door, mainly Australian Backyard Earth Scientist, which is going to be fun, so there has been little time for other writing. Here's something I put in the rainy-day file.

Although I am no longer all that actively involved in education (I just play at being the visiting scientist at a local school), old habits die hard, and I keep my ear to the ground.

This is just one of the things I have in common with dead wombats (that's a very dead wombat on the right). And, I suppose, dead teachers (and I used to be a member of the Dead Teachers' Society, but that's another story).

Over the years, I have become largely immune to the teacher-Luddites, the absolutely determined rejectors of technology. You can tell from a certain shrillness in their tone that their real problem is that they are terrified of what they see before them.

Well, I can relate to that. I have managed to take on board a number of the more recent inventions of the Web, but when I look at my Web pages, they lack a certain modernity. I could probably sit down and make them more funky, but one science site for kids pulls in half a million a year, so I just leave it alone. They ain't broke, so why fix them?

I download podcasts, but I don't use RSS, and I don't VOIP, mainly because it will take time away from writing, and I'm pretty busy right now. Colour me verging on the Luddite. Mind you, I don't think I'll ever be a real Luddite or even a good facsimile of one. Tradition has it that the Luddites, around 1810, took their name from a chap who may have been Ned Ludd or Ned Ludlam.

Or maybe he didn't exist, but if he did, he came from near Leicester, and apparently he broke two stocking frames in a fit of rage. The Luddites broke machines because they threatened people's work, which was a bit different.

The modern Luddites don't break machines, but when they try to use computers, they break the hearts of techies. "My computer's got a virus," they scream.

Techie: "Why do you say that?"

Luddite: "It won't open my file!"

Techie: "What did you create the file in?"

Luddite (long-sufferingly at this silly question): "Microsoft!".

Assorted deities including Erudite, the goddess of smarty-pantses, willing, I won't ever be like that.

But the big problem with some Luddites is that they ooze into management, perhaps by clerical error, and somebody tells them to mend their ways and mind their manners and get with the flow. All of a sudden, the Luddite becomes a fervent exponent of all things technological. In a way, they remind me of George Orwell's sheep in 'Animal Farm'.

Remember them? The animals, symbols of the proletariat, chanting "Four legs good, two legs bad," and later, other variations of that. The reformed Luddites, the anti-Luddites, have their own chant "Old ways bad, new ways good", and they target, in particular, that evil old technology, The Book. It's simple enough for them to think that they understand the concept. Books bad, machines good, they chant.

Now I always found it amusing that when Marshall McLuhan decided the book was dead, he wrote several books to prove it. The modern anti-Luddites seem, for some reason, to be somewhat illiterate, so they don't write books. They just attack them with a vehemence that would not have been out of place in the Opernplatz (now the Bebelplatz) in Berlin, one May night in 1933, when some truly charming people burnt books.

I need a new name for them, though. These people aren't really anti-Luddites, they are inverted, backward Luddites. If the Luddites are followers of Ned Ludd, then these people must be the followers of Ned Dull. Hereafter, they shall be Dullards.

The Dullards have two main lines of argument:

"We don't need books: you can get everything on the Internet."

"Books go out of date, and then we have to throw them out."

I answered the first of these silly claims in a talk on the ABC, some years back, in a talk you can find at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2008/2151433.htm  In essence, I argued that making a book involves a lot more than blogging or emailing does. There is an art and a craft to shaping a book, writing it, editing it and designing it. There is a huge difference between knocking up a web page or five, and creating the sustained narrative that is a book.

Well, I would say that, because I write books, quack the Dullards. I, on the other hand, have a first-hand knowledge of the research, the sweat, the tears, the revisions and the efforts of professional editors and designers that go into my books. I also own quite  few web pages with six-figure counts.

Yes, books can go out of date, or some of them can, especially computer manuals and the like, and the savvy reader checks for the date of publication, which appears on the back of the title page.

Very few web pages have a date on them (all of mine do), and there is no guarantee of quality in a web page. A reputable publisher normally will have done at least a cursory check for quality, so there is some sort of implied guarantee in a book, most of the time*. Look at http://www.allaboutexplorers.com/explorers/ and then look again more closely. Click on the link "For teachers" if you still don't get it. That's right, the whole site is dodgy, and while this one has been created as a warning, people get taken in.

I know. I invented the town of Cootaburra and put it on the web, and over the years, my tall tale of a non-existent town and its fanciful Giant Dung Beetle has been featured in newsletters, a government report, at least two books and one magazine, as well as a number of educational sites.

Just search on Cootaburra and see for yourself. Just stay clear of the ones at Tripod if they are still there, because they were flagged as attack sites that distribute malware. Yep, that's right, a few web sites can be downright dangerous. Books don't do that (except, perhaps, Marie Curie's lab notebooks at the Sorbonne, which even now are so radioactive that would-be readers have to sign away any right to sue, and those aren't published books).

So the Internet can be downright wrong, it's generally not self-correcting, you can't tell if it's up-to-date and it may even cause active harm, but does this upset the Dullards? Not a bit of it: they are hell-bent on getting rid of books and replacing the allegedly useless books with gleaming new technology. Only in this way can they demonstrate their incisive brilliance, their sterling qualities of leadership.

Given a choice between barbarians at the gate and Dullards at the gate, give me the barbarians, any day. You can reason with barbarians and even civilise them with time. Barbarians rape and pillage, but once they've gone, the pieces are still there, so you can start again.

Occasionally, a Dullard emerges who has slipped through the ranks to Senior Management and becomes a principal who can make educational decisions without being educated. They don't just do away with books, these special Dullards, they do away with librarians and leave readers bereft of guidance, at the mercy of any devious snake-oil seller with a glib yarn about giant dung beetles. I'm still working on a special name for that sub-class of Dullard.

No, not that name. Or that name. Or that. I want something I can use in a family-values blog.

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* It was my then publisher who published and was caught out by the Helen Demidenko hoax. I recall this, because I had written a novel that was a transparent hoax at three levels, a literary joke that would have amused but never fooled, pretty much as detectable as Cootaburra. I submitted the ms just as the Demidenko business was coming apart, and got a frosty rejection which I only understood when the scandal all came out. The ms is still in my filing cabinet, and I take it out occasionally and whimper sadly at its unhappy fate.

A short history of Paterson's curse

Paterson's curse, Echium plantagineum, Gundagai NSW

I am, as my friends know, a biologist by training and a writer about science by avocation. Some people are fooled because I often write about the histories of things.

Now as a rule, unless I am stomping on the rogues and cheats at the Charles Sturt Memorial Museum who took my original and meticulously researched text, without permission and slapped their own copyright claim on it, I am fairly easy about sharing.  All people have to do is ask, unless I hand stuff out for free, and this is about just such a free offer, together with a sample.

This is about one of the ways I share: a huge volume, 1.5 million words of it, of research material. I call the collection Many Voices, because I have collected together a vast array of primary source material: either eyewitness or contemporary accounts of Australian history. This is an a (currently) 22 meg PDF, and there's a link at the end.

Because I am going travelling shortly, I have just put together the latest version, and when I mentioned this, a former colleague from the Powerhouse Museum asked if I had got around to dealing with the plant popularly known, either as Paterson's Curse or Salvation Jane.

I hadn't, but I made a note of it to follow up, but then there was more discussion, I started checking things, and before long, there was a whole new chapter of notes.

I may write it up at some stage, but I don't mind if others jump in as well. Here, as they stand in mid-July 2015, are the Salvation Jane files. Most of these are news stories, but I have some other leads that I will follow later. First though, a bit about the purpose of these files:

My intention is to provide food for prepared and hungry minds. These are starting points, not a total collection, and here you will find the ammunition you need to carry on your own hunt: you have places, names (of people and plants), approximate dates and more. There is enough here to make conclusions, but I have given very little of my own conclusions here.  In short, you are in the land of Seek and ye shall find.

OK, enough of that: here's the brain food:

********************

An early warning, news report, 1894

[A little research reveals that Echium creticum is a synonym for Echium plantagineum, the name now used for Paterson’s curse.]

A New Noxious Weed — Mr. Edward Salter, of Mamre Brook, writes as follows :— 'I notice that a plant growing about a foot high with dark green foliage and a pretty purple flower is taking possession of land in the neighbourhood of Ziegersdorf, near Tanunda. In one field it has already covered about two acres of ground, and it monopolizes the roadside for a considerable distance. I learn that it is to be found in various parts of this district, and already may claim to be numbered among the noxious weeds of the colony. I wish to call attention to this pest, and urge the people of these and other parts where it may be recognised to extirpate it before its destruction becomes very costly or impossible. It threatens to be a worse pest than the yellow oxalis, which has already seriously discounted the value of hundreds of acres of our best lands. I submitted the plant I have described to the Secretary of the Central Agricultural Bureau (Mr. Molineux) for identification, and he kindly replied saying-— 'The plant sent is Echium creticum. Escaped from cultivated garden. Terrible for spreading in light sandy soil. Not poisonous, but useless fodder. It has been said the pollen colours honey blue."

— South Australian Register (Adelaide), 19November 1894, 5.

Paterson’s curse at Jingellic, news report, 1900

[Note: assorted minor parochial matters have been cropped: look for ellipses and asterisks.]

JINGELLIC.

FROM A CORRESPONDENT.

The monthly meeting of the Progress Committee was held at the Bridge Hotel on the 3rd inst. Mr. Walker presided. The minutes of the previous meeting having been confirmed, the consideration of the correspondence was proceeded with…

*

A letter from the Lands Department re compulsory destruction of rabbits, stating that a petition showing that the majority of landholders in the district are desirous that the work of rabbit destruction should be made simultaneous and compulsory, would receive careful consideration. Mr. C. Holman had no doubt that the majority of landholders were of opinion that this was the only way to cope with the nuisance, and he moved that a petition embodying these principles should be drawn up and circulated for signature. This was seconded by Mr. Stephenson and unanimously agreed to…

*

Mr. C. Holman then called attention to the growing prevalence of the weed known as "Patterson's Curse" on the Murray and other roads in the district, and said that when this weed once obtained a footing it was very hard to get rid of it, and that no grass or herbage could grow with it. He therefore proposed that the superintendents of roads at Albury and Tumbarumba should be requested to instruct the maintenance men to root it up whenever it was found. This was seconded by Mr. M'Callum and carried. Mr. Walker remarked that when the weed was eradicated from the roads it would be necessary to take steps for its destruction on the stock reserves.

— Albury Banner and Wodonga Express (NSW),9 November 1900, 16.

 

Recognition of a new weed, news report, 1900

NOXIOUS WEEDS. Some time ago Mr. H. S. Ranford forwarded to the Under-Secretary for Lands a couple of weeds which, he said, were spreading through the Broome Hill and Katanning districts. The weeds were in due course forwarded to the Department of Agriculture, where they were handed over to the botanist (Dr. Morrison), who has reported as follows: "1. Parentucellia (or Bartsia) latifolia, an introduced weed already known in the colonies, and a native of Southern Europe. Great Britain, South-West Asia, and North Africa. It is suspected of being deleterious to stock, but proof is required. Appears to be becoming very prevalent in this and the other colonies. 2. Echium plantagineum, 'Purple Echium,' a species of Viper's Bugloss, indigenous in south of Europe, and extending to the Channel Islands and Cornwall. Echium vulgare, 'Common Viper's Bugloss.' used to be employed as a medicine to purify the blood, and in cases of snakebite. No. 1 appears to be causing some trouble to cultivators, and should be destroyed before it has a chance to scatter its plentiful seed. The best remedy will be, in the case of both plants, to pull them up early and burn them."

— The West Australian (Perth), 12 November1900, 5. 

The W. A. Noxious Weeds Bill, news report, 1900

NOXIOUS WEEDS BILL.

From different parts of the country communications have been received, expressing the hope that the Noxious Weeds Bill will be put in force without delay. The evil has not yet grown to serious proportions, except, possibly, in one district, and if the matter is vigorously taken in hand now a very small expenditure will be sufficient to exterminate those weeds. We understand from the Lands Department that as soon as the Bill is approved by the Legislative Council, circulars will be despatched to the various roads boards and municipal councils, asking them to recommend to the Minister what weeds should be considered noxious in their districts, as provided by the Act, so that immediate efforts may be made to exterminate them.

Some time ago Mr. H. S. Ranford forwarded to the Under-secretary for Lands a couple of weeds which, he said, were spreading through the Broome Hill and Katanning districts. The weeds were in due course forwarded to the Department of Agriculture, where they were handed over to the botanist (Dr. Morrison), who has reported as follows: -

"1. Parentucellia (or Bartsia) latifolia, an introduced weed already known in the colonies, and a native of Southern Europe, Great Britain, South-West Asia, and North Africa. It is suspected of being deleterious to stock, but proof is required. Appears to be becoming very prevalent in this and the other colonies. 2. Echium plantagineum, Purple Ecbium,' a species of Viper's Bugloss, indigenous in south of Europe, and extending to the Channel Islands and Cornwall. Echium vulgare, 'Common Viper's Bugloss' used to be employed as a medicine to purify the blood, and in cases of snakebite. No. 1 appears to be causing some trouble to cultivators, and should be destroyed before it has a chance to scatter its plentiful seed. The best remedy will be, in the case of both plants, to pull them up early and burn them."

— Western Mail (Perth), 17 November 1900,8.

A probable report on Paterson’s curse, news report, 1903

[Stockwell is close enough to Ziegersdorf to make this a likely sighting.]

Stockwell is an unpretentious township off the main road to Blanchetown and commercially consists of one store, owned by Mr. G. Heinrich: a blacksmith's shop, conducted by Mr. Jungfer; and a hotel. The state school is now under the superintendence of Mr. Kumnick, who has succeeded Mr. Drinkwater (transferred to Nuriootpa). The postal arrangements are presided over by Miss McCord. Judging by reports the tide of affairs in this snug little town runs vary smoothly. Religious matters are not overlooked, as several places of worship—English and German— are scattered about the town and district. Tight's Pass is only a few miles distant: and equally close are the quaintly named settlements of Neukirch and Ebenezer. The most remarkable feature, in addition to flourishing crops, is the abundance of blue-flowered weed which lines the road for miles at a stretch. This growth is yearly becoming more dense, and the seeds are scattered over adjacent land to the detriment of the soil. Efforts have been made to eradicate it, but unless the several district councils take united steps to clear the highways of the weed there is I little prospect of the pest being kept in check.

— Adelaide Observer, 24 October 1903, 10.

Another wrong identification for Paterson’s curse, news report, 1904

Another Vegetable Pest. — Mr. E. V. Ffrench, local Inspector of Stock, recently forwarded to the Department for examination and identification a weed known as "Patterson's Curse."

The Government Botanist reports as follows : — "Name Echium Violaceum, Linn. 'Purple Bugloss.' Introduced from the Mediterranean region. It is not a poisonous weed, but unpalatable on account of its harsh nature. The only way to eradicate plants such as these is to hoe them out before they seed. I recommend that it be hoed out as fast as it makes its appearance on new ground.'

— Albury Banner and Wodonga Express, 15January 1904, 23.

Another common name for Paterson’s curse, news report, 1905

Weeds are obnoxious, and should be killed outright wherever possible. Vipers bugloss, known as the purple weed, which flourished around Stockwell, and has spread half-way to Tarlee, is said to have spread from a Barossa garden, where it was cultivated as a garden adorner.

— Kapunda Herald (S. A.), 22 September1905, 3.

An account of Paterson’s curse, news report, 1905

"Patterson's Curse."

"Australian" writes: — The countryside up Wagga way just at present is fairly covered with a weed topped by a purple flower. It is called by the people in these parts "Patterson's Curse," and according to local naturalists has a history. It is not altogether unsightly when you see the first few patches of it, but when you encounter miles and miles of country ornamented with it you get tired of it.

In the domain of Nature, as in other things, familiarity breeds contempt. When the worthy Patterson (for so the story runs) first imported a few roots of the flower and carefully planted them in his garden, his neighbours no doubt admired his taste and enterprise. And they were quite right. Even the gentle rabbit was a pet at one stage of Australia's history. It is hard to believe it now, but it is a fact nevertheless.

Moderation is undoubtedly a magnificent thing. If the rabbit, and the sparrow, and the purple flower aforesaid — as well as the drunkard and the Socialist— recognised the real magnificence of moderation there would be a refreshing diminution of our national troubles. But Patterson's flower displayed a distressing ignorance of the value of self-restraint (if inanimate nature can be so charged), and soon overran the limits of the pioneer's garden.

It spread with such alarming rapidity that the settlers found it necessary to get a distinctive appellation for it, and so a worthy pioneer's name is carried down to posterity linked to a weed that is a curse in name if not in reality.

It is another proof of Shakespeare's conclusion that the evil men do lives after them, whilst the good is often interred with their bones. Some of the characteristics of "Patterson's Curse:" It grows in greatest profusion in a season like the present, when there is abundance of grass. In drought time it is scarce as clover, so that its utility as a fodder cannot be determined.

The stock will not eat it now, because there is plenty of good old-fashioned grass, and when the latter is scarce "Patterson's Crimson Curse" (as I heard it called) (simultaneously diminishes. One good thing about it, however, is that it is easily checked. I wish we could say that about the rabbit curse.

— Albury Banner and Wodonga Express (NSW),15 December 1905, 39.

A wrong identification, news report, 1907

[At least in the early years, the species in question was often incorrect. Paterson’s curse is NOT Echium vulgare.]

TALUNGA, Jan. 14.                                                     

Present—Crs. T. Pflaum (chair), W. Jamieson, W. Redden, J. Gregory, and G. H. Bennett. Complaints having been received that the plant known as "blue weed" (Echium Vulgare) is spreading through the district, action to be taken to have the plant proclaimed a noxious weed.

— The Mount Barker Courier and Onkaparinga and Gumeracha Advertiser (S. A.), 18 January 1907, 4.

A description of Echium plantagineum, Black, 1909.

Echium plantagineum: Roadsides, pasture, — Sept. – Dec., sometimes also in winter.—Mediterranean region, extending up the west coast of France to Jersey. Known as Salvation Jane in our northern agricultural areas, and as Blue-weed or Paterson’s Curse in New South Wales.

— J.M. Black, The naturalised flora of South Australia. Adelaide: J. M. Black, 1909, 112. (Sourced from Hathi Trust.)

‘Paterson’s curse’ declared a noxious weed, news report, 1909

ITEMS OF NEWS

Echium plantagineum, commonly known an 'Patterson's Curse,' a weed which has been the cause of considerable controversy in the 'Border Morning Mail' from correspondents upholding and denouncing its value as a fodder plant, has, been declared a noxious weed within the area of the Lockhart shire.

— The Border Morning Mail and Riverina Times (Albury), 18 December 1909, 2.

Adelaide weeds, news report, 1910

WEEDS ON THE MARCH.

THE WHITE MAN'S FOOT.

[By F. S. Salisbury M.A ]

Every settlement made by civilized men in a new country is a distributing centre for the plants of their mother land. If every European were to leave Australia tomorrow the old-world vegetation he had introduced would outlast the most massive architecture as a monument of his sojourn. Black Plantain is known as the White Man's Foot; Tufted Vetch grows to-day on the shores of Greenland, where the adventurous Norsemen brought it in their tenth century voyages over the Atlantic; and no rash geological theories should be launched millenniums hence, when the Norfolk Island Pine is discovered clothing the slopes of our Australian hills. We must be there to explain!

New plants are constantly bring introduced into Australia, from all parts of the world with which she has traffic. Some are brought in on purpose, and others by accident. They come in through the ports, and are let loose wherever there is a town, or village, or homestead to which goods are sent. Once escaped, they travel especially along the wastes by roadsides, and stock routes and railways. The roads leading out of Adelaide contain many of these vagabond plants that are on the march.

—An Adulterant of Coffee.—

A ragged, untidy-looking fellow redeemed by beautiful flowers of pale cornflower blue is the succory, or chicory (Cichorium intybus). The flowers as large as those of sow thistles, evidently belong to the same order of composite plants. They sit close down singly or in pairs on the stems and branches in a way that adds to the ungainly impression of the whole. It is like a man's head right down between his shoulders without the intervention of a neck!

We need not spend long over the part of the plant which is above ground. Just notice how tough and almost woody is the stem by comparison with the green, hollow sow thistle; but the latter is an annual, whereas succory possesses a perennial stock. Most of the leaves of succory are in a rosette at the root, with deep, pointed lobes and coarse teeth. The salad endive is perhaps only a cultivated variety of them.

The long stout taproot is fleshy and brittle, but with a little trouble we can get it up entire. This root is the principal adulterant of coffee. Many people prefer the mixture. All that is necessary is to roast the root and grind it; so, if you like to make an amateur experiment, there is plenty of raw material along, the suburban roads. Cheap though it is, this adulterant is itself adulterated with things still cheaper — dock roots, for instance, which are similar in form.

—Yellow-Flowered Relations.—

Wandering along the wastes together with succory are two other composites already mentioned as garden weeds. Once or twice, I noticed striking examples of the red tinted form of sow thistle. There is another variety (Sonchus asper) of which I should like to hear locally. Its leaves are usually darker, with crisped and more closely toothed margins, and the stem clasping ears are more rounded and prickly instead of being prolonged into a point. But a seeding piece should be obtained, if possible, as the final determination rests on a minute difference in the fruits. Then there is bristly ox tongue again.

Two further points must be noted. Besides the green bracts that closely embrace the flowers, there is a second whorl of fewer but much broader ones below. These outer bracts are usually five in number, but a look out should be kept for specimens with four, only. The second point concerns its name.

Even scientific names are sometimes interesting, and the ox tongue is called Helminthia echioides, or the Echium-like Helminthia, because its foliage, and especially the short heartshaped stem leaves, so closely resembles that of the Echium which is growing alongside of it.

— Paterson's Curse —

Looking at the handsome purple-blue flowers of the plantain-leaved viper's bugloss (Echium plantagineum) you would say the title given to it above is as unkind to the plant as it is to Paterson. But handsome is that handsome does, and although the young leaves afford good fodder, the viper's bugloss soon becomes much too rough for stock, and, while useless itself, kills the grass beneath it.

There are various ways of achieving fame, and when the Patersons on their small farm near Albury introduced this pretty 'blue weed' as a garden flower 30 years ago they little imagined their name would be associated through it with one of the worst weed-pests in the district. The likeness to bristly ox tongue suggested in the scientific name is also recalled in the popular designation, for bugloss, derived from two Greek words, signifies nothing more than 'ox tongue.'

But the plants have no botanical affinity, and their flowers are utterly unlike. Five years ago Mr. Maiden (the Government Botanist of New South Wales) only mentioned the Flinders Range for its South Australian distribution. If that means that it is as yet unknown in the fertile plains, the sooner its outward march from Adelaide is checked the better. It has already got loose in the southern suburbs; and, although high cultivation may keep it from the fields in the immediate neighbourhood, the plant will soon be on the tramp 'out back,' where it will quickly get beyond control.

Experience shows that these weeds travel along the unwatched roads, As the worst and most extensive experiences of viper's bugloss nave been in New South Wales, the pamphlet on the subject published in 1905 by Mr. J. H. Maiden is worth attentive perusal. From various reports quoted there I take two sentences only, of ugly importance. "One patch (near Albury) must have covered something like 100 acres, at a rough estimate. Wherever the plant gets a fair hold it completely smothcrs the grass."

— Holy Thistle —

Although not at present in flower, the holy or milk thistle is so exclusively cultivated for the beauty of its foliage, that it calls for description on sight of its leaves alone. Moreover, it is yet one more composite on our list, and a prickly one to boot. But the prickles are merely the spinous margins of the lobes. The surface of the leaf is a deep, shining green, reticulated with beautiful milk-white veins.

You would think that a gardener who sowed thistles, instead of grubbing them up, was cursing the ground already cursed enough for his sake. But holy thistle is an annual, or at most, a biennial, flowering only once from the same stock. It is, therefore, easily controlled, and the landscape gardener can safely avail himself of its handsomely marbled foliage. It remains to be seen whether it will behave as well now that it has, so to speak, shouldered its swag, and started off down the street on its own, for the holy thistle is no uncommon eight by the suburban roadside.

— A Thistle Pest —

Although from an agricultural point of view, we found sow thistle to be one of the few useful plants of a comparatively useless order, another composite— the star thistle (Centaurea calcitrapa) has the distinction of being one of the very worst weeds in Australia.

Unfortunately, it is common on wastes, and along roadsides in and near Adelaide, and the only check on its multiplication seems to be the flocks of small birds that feast on its seeds. No grazing animals help to keep it down; for, not only is the foliage prickly, but the small thistle-like heads of purple flowers are defended by, long, stout spines, terminating the involucral bracts, and standing out in all directions at right angles from the flower heads.

Star thistle does not appear in isolated specimens like sow thistle and holy thistle, but usually forms thick patches or colonies. The difference is due to the fact that the two latter plants have a feathery pappus by which the ripe seeds of a single plant are wafted over a wide area by the wind. Star thistle seeds have no such equipment, and fall near at hand round the parent plant.

Nevertheless, they are transported to long distances by roads and stock routes in a very effective manner. If you force your way through a ripening dump of star thistle, several whole heads are almost certain to break off, and stick into your clothing by their sharp spines. Travelling stock similarly catch the heads in their coats; and, if they are sheep, their wool is also caught by the plant, and matted and torn.

I wish we could describe it as a rare annual or biennial, such as it is in the British flora but it is very common round Adelaide, and apparently quite unchecked on waste lands. Its effectiveness in tearing the wool of sheep is increased by the spines on the its involucre having two small prickles at their base, so that they are as difficult to withdraw when once buried in the fleece as a whale harpoon or a barbed arrow from the wound. It is strange to find this plant so flourishing along the public roads, in view of the South Australian Act passed as long ago as 1887, and directed against star thistles, though apparently meant at the time for a yellow species.

— The Herb Generall —

I believe that almost exhausts the list of composites— good, bad, and indifferent flowering just now along our roadsides for, with the sole exception of Paterson's curse, all the plants described in this paper belong to that vast order. But an addition, a cultivated marigold (Calendula officinalis) has made its escape in some parts. I found a stray plant of it by the road up Glen Osmond at 600 ft. above sea. It is justly a favourite, because of the rich, orange ray which fringes the almost black-tipped disc of tubular flowers.

There is an interesting subdivision of function in these flower heads. The tubular florets in the centre have anthers only, while the seed, is produced by the two or three ranks of ray florets, to which is assigned also the business of advertising for visitors. When the outer florets of a composite are specialized into rays you may know that the plant is trying to secure cross-fertilization by insects.

Common groundsel has no ray, and therefore is seldom visited by insects, although it produces honey; but self-fertilization is regular and effective, and full heads of good seed are formed. Both, here and in Europe — of the south of which it is a native— the marigold flowers all round the calendar. It was popularly supposed to blossom on the first day— called after the Latin 'the Calends'— of each month, and hence its scientific name.

The plant's species name, officinalis, is applied to many herbs employed medicinally. Marigold had a high reputation. In his 'Speech of Flowers' Fuller refers to "the many and sovereign virtues in your leaves, the Herb Generall in all pottage." It is said to be an excellent remedy for wounds, burns, and ulcers, and to have been employed by the surgeons during the American civil war with good results.

Fair is the gilly flour, for gardens sweet,
Fair is the marigold, for pottage meet.

— The Register (Adelaide), 6 August 1910,6.

Noxious in South Australia, news report, 1910

BLUE WEED.

The blue weed, which has been described as like the Canterbury bell, has become so prevalent that the Government has decided to declare it noxious. Mr. W. L. Summers reports:—
"The plant, so far as I can ascertain, Echium plantagineum, know here as blue weed. Salvation Jane. &c, and in New South Wales as blue weed or Paterson's Curse—the latter after the family that introduced it to Albury district about 30 years ago. It is an escape from garden cultivation, and is now very widely distributed throughout New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. In this State it has been prevalent to the south of the city, round Gladstone, Laura, and the adjacent districts, near Tanunda, and in other parts for many years. During the past few years it has been reported from a number of different districts, even as far north as Johnsburg, in the watercourses.

Echium plantagineum is a biennial or perennial plant, with coarse, hairy leaves, which lie fairly close to the ground. It sends up a flower stem of from 1 ft. to 4 ft. in height, according to the nature of the soil and the moisture conditions. Although stock eat it to a certain extent when young, and when there is little or nothing else green, it cannot be regarded as being of any economic value, as it smothers out better herbage, and, in many cases, has completely ruined valuable pastures.

Attention was called by the late Mr. Molineux fully 15 years ago to the necessity for cheeking the spread of this weed, and it is much to be regretted that his warnings have been neglected, as in many districts, where a few hours' work would have destroyed the plants, it would now cost almost as much as the land is worth to do so. The best method of ridding the land of the weed where cultivation can not be practised is to cut it off just below the ground when the flower stem first appears. A mattock or sharp chopping hoe will be found suitable for this work. In New South Wales it is stated that paddocks have been cleared of the weed by close grazing with sheep while the plant is young. This practice requires to be continued for several years to eradicate the plant."

— The Advertiser (Adelaide). 20 October1910, 12.

A vote for destruction, news report, 1910

[This appears to be an early use of “Salvation Jane” as the primary name.]

SALVATION JANE.

In the House of Assembly yesterday afternoon the Commissioner of Crown Lands moved in the direction of having blue weed (Echium plantagineum) proclaimed as a noxious weed. He contented himself with formally moving the necessary motion, which met with some opposition on the grounds that the weed was not stated to be poisonous and that it would be a great burden upon farmers to eradicate it. Later on the Minister read a report on the plant as made by Mr. Summers (secretary to the Department of Agriculture), and published in yesterday's "Daily Herald." The plant was also known, he added, incidentally as "Salvation Jane." The motion to eradicate "Salvation Jane" was carried on the voices.

— Daily Herald (Adelaide), 21 October1910, 4.

Praise for Paterson’s curse, news report, 1910

THE MAN ON THE LAND.

THAT PURPLE WEED. WHERE IT HAS FRIENDS. 'A VALUABLE FODDER.'

[By Agricola.]

Few weeds have attracted more critical attention and been responsible for so much diversity of opinion as the rapidly increasing Echium plantagineum, popularly described as the purple weed, and otherwise known as Paterson's curse, Salvation Jane, snake weed, and the blue devil. How the plant first was started upon its travels in the State nobody apparently has been able to definitely decide, but there is a belief in some quarters that it originally 'escaped' from a private garden, where, like the ubiquitous 'soursop,' it is said to have been regarded as a rather rare floricultural treasure.

Whether or not that idea is based upon a solid foundation, the fact remains that the weed has spread over the major portion of the older agricultural areas, and to-day is viewed with mixed feelings by many thousands of men on the land.

—Both Sides Right —

A few weeks ago representations were made to the Government with a view to have the plant included in the category of 'noxious weeds.' The immediate result was that while numerous correspondents in the lower north and to the east and south of Adelaide warmly endorsed the proposal and hoped that prompt measures would be taken to eradicate the 'pest,' dozens of others in the middle north and upward referred eulogistically to the plant as a most valuable fodder for stock, and trusted that the authorities would not be persuaded into pronouncing its doom; even allowing that a proclamation for its wholesale destruction could be carried into effect.

So far as the writer has been able to ascertain, both by personal observations and enquiries extending from Adelaide to Carrieton, the friends and the foes of Salvation Jane have good grounds for their respective attitudes. In those localities where there is almost invariably a plentiful supply of nutritious herbage, the stock will not, as a rule touch the weed, which consequently is or no value, but rather a menace to the natural grasses it undoubtedly smothers.

In regions, however, where the climatic and other conditions are not conducive to the abundant growth and continuance of native grasses, the stock not only eat the weed but seem to enjoy it immensely, and undoubtedly thrive on it.

— Solution of Problem. —

In the circumstances, the obvious solution of the difficulty is to declare the plant "noxious'' in the country south of (say) Saddleworth, and "useful" in the areas above that point. Of course, before that procedure can be adopted, as was indicated in The Register a couple of .weeks ago, it will be necessary to amend the laws on the subject — an innovation which would surely prove beneficial in more directions than one. In its present form and under prevailing administration, the statute is not nearly so effective as it should be, and early commonsense revision would be welcomed with hearty approval.

Although patches and isolated plants of the 'curse' may be seen in the fields and along the roads right from Adelaide to Terowie, it is not until after havuing left the junction town some miles behind that one enters "the real home" of the weed, in the neighbourhood of Lancelot the land is a moving mass of colour, which, in the bright sunlight, evokes the enthusiastic admiration of the artistic beholder. In the wheat crops, stimulated possibly by the artificial fertilizers, the plants often rise high above the heads of the grain, while along the roadway and on the lay lands they appear from a distance like a magnificent purple carpet. It is about here that the traveller is compelled to recognise the force of the arguments of those who strenuously contend that the plant should not be brought under the noxious ban. On all sides sheep and cattle may be seen eating it with avidity. Indeed, they will even pass over fairly green barley grass for the more succulent blossoms and stems of the 'curse.'

— Vigorously Championed. —

At Dawson, where the weed flourishes amazingly, the writer interviewed several persons regarding its utility or otherwise, and in each case heard it spoken of in the highest and most flattering terms. '"Even if such a course was at all feasible,'' remarked one prominent farmer, "I would not have it destroyed for anything. As a fodder it has excellent qualities, which guarantee for it the widespread appreciation of men in this district. You see that herd of cows over there — pointing to a purple paddock half a mile away— they are eating the weed for all they are worth, and sheep do splendidly on it. A characteristic which renders it the more valuable is that it is practically a drought resister. In other words, it remains green throughout nearly the whole of the summer, and is therefore a distinct boon long after the natural grasses have withered and died."

Mr. C. H. Meyers stated that ''the plant was first noticed in the district in 1888. In 1892, at a meeting of the local branch of the Agricultural Bureau, it was decided to forward a sample to the Central Bureau for identification. About a month later a reply was received from the General Secretary (the late Mr. A. Molineux) that it was a fodder plant known botanically as Echium plantagineum. It is this plant which at present keeps up the flow of milk, as the stock will not look at the native grass on account of the seeds. I have never seen horses eat it, but they are exceedingly partial to the clover which grows under the protective cover of the weed. In his report on the subject recently.

Mr. Summers said — 'Although stock eat it to a certain extent when young, and when there is little or nothing else green, it cannot. &c.' In this he is quite wrong, as he would soon discover if he turned sheep into a paddock at any period of the growth of the plant, and with plenty of other green grass and herbage about: I would sooner have it in my watercourses than barley grass, as it will not allow the water to wash out the soil, but causes the gutters to silt up. Indeed, if it had not been for the weed from 25 to 30 acres of my land would now be useless. The more thickly it grows the better stock like it, and if cut when at its height it makes excellent ensilage.''

— The Weed Wins.—

As an illustration of the attraction which the weed has for cattle, it is interesting to learn the experiment of a dairy farmer a few miles to the south of Dawson. So soon as the natural feed began to die off, he made it a practice to feed his cows on bran and chaff, which they seemed to find sufficiently palatable until one day, on their way to drink at the dam, they came across some heaps of the blue weed that had been mowed down in an adjacent paddock. To these they promptly gave their attention, and ate with a manifest relish, which utterly amazed the owner, and disclosed their undoubted preference.

All through the upper north the weed has obtained a firm footing, and it is rarely adversely criticised. It is particularly in evidence around Carrieton, and on some of the roads outside of Hammond has attained such a height that it looks like a miniature forest. Here, as in some other districts, the sheep are especially fond of it, and have eaten many of the plants down to within an inch or two of the ground.

Reference has been made on several occasions to the almost utter impossibility of eradicating the weed once it has established itself in a paddock. Judging by what the writer was told, the task should not be nearly so hard as is imagined. A farmer who desired to put under wheat a block of land whereon the plant was fairly thick, soon disposed of it by means of cultivation.

— The Register (Adelaide), 28 November1910, 3.

The links to Many Voices

 There are several ways to get there: here are two. The PDF is in my Dropbox public folder for now, and either of these will do:

www.tinyurl.com/manyvoicespdf

or

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4602454/many%20voices.pdf

Your mileage may vary: please drop me a line if you are having trouble. A comment on this blog is the best way, and I will get back to you as soon as I can.