SCIENTIFIC FARMING AT ROTHAMSTED. 81 



the United States, and consequently also over the intervening conti- 

 nent of Northern Asia, when the climate and geography were differ- 

 ent from what they are now. From the close of that age, marked in 

 Britain by the development of " the silver streak," the animal has 

 steadily been retreating southward in the direction of its present 

 haunts through all the period recorded in history. This has probably 

 been brought about by the rivalry of the hunter, the loss of cover, 

 and the increasing scarcity of game. Its disappearance, however, 

 from Northern Asia and North America must have been due to some 

 other causes, as in the parallel case of the horse, which abounded in 

 North America in the Pleistocene age, and afterward became extinct, 

 although the conditions of life are now so favorable that the animals 

 introduced by the Spaniards have run wild, and now form vast herds. 

 It became extinct in Britain at the close of the Pleistocene age, and 

 in Europe between the time of Aristotle (340 b. c.) and that of Dio 

 Chrysostom Rhetor (80 to 100 a. d.). Contemporary Review. 



-*- 



SCIENTIFIC FARMING AT ROTHAMSTED. 



By MANLY MILES, M. D. 



IN the literature of every department of agriculture, the references 

 to the Rothamsted experiments are getting to be as familiar as 

 household words, and it is now generally admitted that they have had 

 an important influence on English farm-practice. 



In this Country, however, the direct and practical bearing of these 

 experiments on the every-day business of the farm is not fully appre- 

 ciated, and this is perhaps largely owing to the fact that the American 

 farmer is owner of the soil he tills, and is not therefore compelled to 

 give that strict attention to every detail of the economy of farm man- 

 agement that is essential to the successful practice of farming in 

 Great Britain. 



It would seem that the leading object of inquiry at Rothamsted 

 has been the solution of agricultural problems, but the relations of 

 science to agriculture are so broad that what may be considered purely 

 practical lines of investigation can not be limited to considerations 

 that are of interest to the farmer only, as they involve the discussion 

 of questions that are constantly presenting themselves in the progres- 

 sive development of the sciences of chemistry, botany, vegetable and 

 animal physiology, including dietetics and the laws of assimilation 

 and growth, and thus lead to an examination of topics that are prop- 

 erly included in the domain of social and sanitary sciences. 



In fact, when the original object of inquiry is the attainment of 

 some practical end, the dominant work of experimentation, when 



VOL. XXII. 6 



