EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Vol. III. ISSUED SEPTEMBER, 1891. No. 2. 



EDITORIAL KOTES. 



TJonowod intorost in the investifrations conducted at Rothamsted, 

 Enf:fl;ind, under the direction of Sir John Bennet Lawe.s, has been 

 awakened by the lectures of Mr. Robert Wariugton delivered before 

 the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Exix'rirnent 

 Stations at its recent meeting in Washington, D. C. This course of 

 lectures is the first of a series to be given once in two years in this coun- 

 try, in accordance with tlie provisions of wliat is known as the Lawes 

 Agricultural Trust. The lectures of Mr. Warington will be published 

 by the Department of Agriculture as a bulletin of this Office, and a 

 summary of them will be given in the Experiment Station Record. 

 The following general statements explanatory of the work carried on 

 at Rothamsted have been taken for the most part from a pamphlet 

 descriptive of the origin, plan, and results of the field and other experi. 

 uients at that place, issued in June, 1891. As early as 1834 Mr. (now 

 Sir) John Bennet Lawes began experiments in agriculture at his hered- 

 itary estate at Rothamsted, Hertfordshire, 25 miles from London. At 

 lirst the experiments were with different fertilizers applied to plants in 

 pots. Afterwards similar investigations were made in the field. Such 

 striking results were obtained, especially in those experiments where 

 the neutral phosphate of lime in bones, bone ash, and apatite, dissolved 

 in sulphuric acid, were applied to root crops, that the scale on which 

 the trials were made was enlar<;ed from time to time. In 1843 the field 

 experiments were so systematized that it is fairly claimed that "the 

 fonndation of the Rothamsted Experimental Station may be said to 

 date from that time." For a number of years laboratory work was car- 

 ried on in a barn, but the results obtained at Rothamsted attracted so 

 much attention that a new laboratory was built by public subscription 

 of agriculturists, and presented to Sir John in 1855. In the autumn of 

 1888 another building was erected, comprising two large rooms for the 

 storing of specimens and for some processes of preparation, and also a 

 drying room. The station now has a "collection of more than 40,0U0 



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