50 Years Ago

Plans are afoot to improve the British onion. The latest annual report from the National Vegetable Research Station at Wellesbourne (price 10s) tells of work in progress to combat some obstacles to the production of more home grown onions. If yields are to increase it is essential to control weeds economically … Onions are very susceptible to competition and when weeds are left among the crop for a whole growing season no marketable yield is produced. Work at Wellesbourne has shown that there is a critical period, between five and a half and seven and a half weeks after emergence, when weeding is essential if the crop is to give a good yield … Because relatively little is known about the compounds responsible for the flavour and pungency of onions, biochemists at Wellesbourne have begun to characterize them and to investigate the extent to which their occurrence is under genetic and environmental control. So far they have found that different species of Allium contain characteristic proportions of various radicals. Garlic (A. sativum) has large amounts of allyl, onion (A. cepa) has almost exclusively n-propyl, and Chinese chive (A. tuberosum) has more than ninety per cent methyl radicals. No wonder they taste different.

From Nature 5 July 1969

100 Years Ago

We record with devout gratitude that the Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany was signed at Versailles on Saturday last, June 28, thus bringing to a close a struggle in which the leading nations of the civilised world have been engaged for a period of nearly five years. The German delegates, in a statement to the Press, declare that they have signed the Treaty without any reservations whatsoever and in the honest intention of carrying out its provisions. They hope, however, that the Entente may in time modify some of the conditions.

From Nature 3 July 1919