EDITORIAL. 807 



interruption of exiaeriments and investigations is by no means always 

 attributable to the station worker, or to the director himself, but 

 with a more systematic arrangement of the station work, and a closer 

 and more sympathetic contact with it, many of the present dis- 

 turbing factors might be avoided. 



Now that every station has given serious attention to the planning 

 of research and has made that an important phase of its activity, at- 

 tention may well be turned to the strengthening of the station 

 organization for such work and the bringing of the station Avork as a 

 whole into harmony with it. 



In a recent article. Doctor Pritchett, speaking of another subject, 

 says: " Perhaps at our present stage of development in such matters 

 no other preliminary work needs more to be done than some work of 

 popular education relative to Avhat research is." This applies \vith 

 peculiar force to the subject of agriculture. "Our ideas are not yet 

 entirely clear as to what research in agriculture really is, and the 

 general public has only the faintest glimmer of its importance in 

 comparison with other grades of work. Systematic effort will there- 

 fore be needed to develop an intelligent appreciation of research in 

 agriculture and of its ultimate importance in making real progress 

 possible. 



The death of Prof. Kobert Warington. at Harpenden, England, 

 on March 20, will call to mind the excellent course of lectures given 

 before the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Ex- 

 ])eriment Stations in 1891. by the first rej)resentative sent to this 

 country under the provisions of the Lawes Agricultural Trust. Pro- 

 fessor Warington made many friends on that occasion, who gained 

 from him inspiration for exact and painstaking investigation, as 

 well as a clearer insight into the plan and method of the systematic 

 work at Kothamsted. The news of his death will be received with 

 much regret. 



From an article in Nati/rc, by the present director of the Kotham- 

 sted station, it is learned that Warrington was born in 1888. being 

 the son of a chemist of prominence, from wdiom he learned his first 

 chemistry. In 1S5J) he worked for some time as a voluntary assist- 

 ant in the Rothamsted laboratorv, and in 1862 went to the Eoyal 

 Agricultural College at Cirencester as assistant to the late Dr. 

 Augustus Voelcker. In 1807 he became chemist at Sir John Lawes's 

 tartaric acid works, and in 1870 returned to Rothamsted, where he 

 renuiined until 1890. 



" On his return to the Rothamsted laboratory in 1870, Warington 

 introduced several improved methods of analysis to save time or 

 insure greater accuracy in the routine determinations; there also 

 he carried out the investigations on nitrification by which he made 

 his name. In 1877 appeared the paper of Schloesing and Muntz, 



