694 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



SKETCH OF SIR JOHN BENNET LAWES. 



IN John Bennet Lawes, said " Nature," more than ten years ago 

 (December 9, 1875), *' we have a private individual who, unaided 

 by the state, or by any scientific body, has made a greater number of 

 useful experiments than all the experimental farms of European gov- 

 ernments put together." The work referred to in such terras of praise 

 was performed on Mr. Lawes's private estate at Rothamstead, in Hert- 

 fordshire, England, to which he succeeded as heir in 1822, being eight 

 years of age, and on which he began his famous experiments in 1834, 

 when he entered upon actual possession of it. 



Mr. Lawes was born in 1814, and acquu-ed his school education at 

 Eton College and Brasenose, Oxford, where he was a student from 

 1832 to 1835. His favorite work during this time was in the labora- 

 tory ; and after leaving the university he spent some time in London, 

 in the study of practical chemistry. His situation and surroundings 

 wei"e particularly favorable to his giving his whole attention to the 

 pursuit to which his tastes inclined him, and for which he had quali- 

 fied himself by his studies. Possessed of independent means, a hand- 

 some property, and a beautiful old manor-house and domain of about 

 five hundred acres, he at once interested himself in agriculture ; and 

 from the year he entered upon manhood till now, or for more than fifty 

 years, he has been unceasingly applying his scientific knowledge to 

 the solution of questions affecting the practice of that art. " In the 

 commencement of his experiments," says his biographer in the Lon- 

 don " Times," " among other subjects, the effect of bones as a manure 

 on land occupied his attention for some time. A friend and neighbor, 

 the then Lord Dacre, particularly directed his notice to the fact that 

 bones were very variable in their effect on different soils. Several 

 hundred experiments were accordingly made, some upon crops in the 

 field and others with plants in pots, in which the constituents found in 

 the ashes of plants as well as others were supplied in various states of 

 combination. Striking results were gained from these experiments, in 

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

 was rendered soluble by means of sulphuric acid, and the mixture ap- 

 plied for root-crops. The results obtained on a small scale in 1837-'39 

 were such as to lead to more extensive trials in the field in 1840-'41, 

 and to the final taking out of a patent early in 1842. This being 

 done, Mr. Lawes established large works in the neighborhood of Lon- 

 don, for the manufacture of superphosphate of lime, by which name 

 the manure is known, which has produced such a revolution in the 

 science of agriculture." 



In 1843 Mr. Lawes associated with himself Dr. J. H. Gilbert, 

 whose name has since been connected with his in all the researches 



