120 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



Evans, Treasurer of the Royal Society and Honorary Treasurer 

 of the Rothamsted Jubilee Fund ; the Earl of Clarendon, Lord 

 Lieutenant of the County of Herts ; Sir John Lubbock, M, P., 

 Trustee of the Lawes Agricultural Fund ; Mr. Ernest Clarke, Sec- 

 retary to the Royal Agricultural Society of England and Honor- 

 ary Secretary of the Rothamsted Jubilee Fund ; representatives 

 of the Soci^td des Agriculteurs de France ; and other men whose 

 names are as significant and representative. Letters were read 

 from the Prince of Wales, to whom is given the credit of having 

 originated the celebration ; Prince Christian ; the Marquis of Sal- 

 isbury ; Prof. Huxley ; Sir Gabriel Stokes ; M. Tisserand, Direc- 

 tor of Agriculture for France ; the Association of Experimental 

 Stations in Canada and the United States ; M. Pasteur ; M. Ddhd- 

 ran, and other foreigners famous in science. These distinguished 

 guests were assembled, and the ceremonies of the day were per- 

 formed, to do honor to the work of two men plain farmers, we 

 might correctly call them who had spent their lives in the study 

 of the best means of improving the yield and quality of agricul- 

 tural crops Sir John Bennet Lawes and Mr. Joseph Henry Gilbert. 



We have already given, in a sketch of J. B. Lawes, in Volume 

 XXVIII of The Popular Science Monthly, a brief account of the 

 early history of the Rothamsted Agricultural Experiment Sta- 

 tion. 



It was established by Mr. Lawes on the estate which he en- 

 tered by inheritance in 1834. He had been engaged for several 

 years in chemical experiments, chiefly with reference to the prepa- 

 ration of drugs. As he wrote to a friend in 1888, he had not 

 thought of any connection between chemistry and agriculture till 

 his attention was attracted by the remark of a gentleman, who 

 farmed near him, that on one farm bones were invaluable for the 

 turnip crop, and on another farm they were useless. A quantity 

 of precipitated gypsum and spent animal charcoal was offered 

 him ; he was using much sulphuric acid in his drug experiments ; 

 and here he had ma*terials for applying superphosphate and 

 enlarging and extending to the field experiments which he had 

 begun with plants in pots. In 1843 Mr. Joseph Henry Gilbert 

 became associated with Mr. Lawes, and the experiments have 

 been continued since then without interruption under the joint 

 direction of the two. The celebration we have mentioned was 

 held to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of this connection 

 and of the beginning of the real work of the Rothamsted Station. 

 Both men were entitled to equal honor in remembrance, and both 

 received it in the tributes which were offered. 



Mr, Gilbert was born at Hull, August 1, 1817. His father was 

 the late Rev. Joseph Gilbert, and his mother was well known as 

 an author, under the name of Ann Taylor of Ongar. After 



