1882.] AGRICULTUEAL EXPERIMENTS. 41 



bearing upon life -phenomena, we have frequent use for the 

 methods and results of pure science, and in addition, must use the 

 less accurately expressed data whose truth is measured accurately- 

 through experiment. As we measure force through its power of 

 resistance, experimentally, so must we measure the effects that 

 spring from the union of many forces, as in life, growth, develop- 

 ment, experimentally, and assign relations to the data obtained. 



Agricultural investigation is the determining and measuring of 

 data connected with relations which may come more or less com- 

 pletely under our guidance and control, and deals with the precise 

 sciences, as well as with those with experimental relations. Its 

 objects, to the untrained observer, may sometimes appear trivial, 

 or of little consequence, yet the investigation into the causes and 

 effects of life, growth, development, decay, the relations of vitality 

 to the inorganic realm, and the mutual interaction of all cosmic 

 causes and results, renders agricultural experimentation possible, 

 and gives accuracy and value to its deductions. 



The great agricultural experiment station of the world, that of 

 Messrs. Lawes & Gilbert, at Rothamstead, dates from 1834. It 

 essays agricultural investigation as well as agricultural experi- 

 mentation. In the first division are to be noted extensive, pains- 

 taking studies on such questions as the transpiration qualities of 

 plants; on rainfall, evaporation, and percolation; on nitrification; 

 on the sources of the nitrogen of vegetation; on the botanical 

 results of experiments on grass; analyses of many kinds; discus- 

 sions of chemical results, etc.; on the composition of foods; on the 

 equivalency of starch and sugar in food; on sewage; on the com- 

 position of animals; on the sources of the fat of the animal body, 

 etc. In the second division, are elaborate, long-continued, field- 

 experiments with various crops and with rotations, as well as 

 experiments on the feeding of stock, the results being tabulated 

 comparatively, and the influence of varying causes discussed by 

 the light thrown upon them by the many and minute investiga- 

 tions. And yet, despite the enormous resources of this station, 

 and the length and continuance of its work, and its records of 

 minute details, many questions of practical import to the farmer 

 and citizen are as yet unanswered. "We cannot but remark that 

 field experiments are more fitted for purposes of verification than 

 that of discovery; that even this superb series of field experi- 

 mentation seems unfitted to offer the farmer correct reply to what 

 he would know: What manure shall I use on my land? How 



