2 PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. 



are read on various scientific subjects, and this he generally does 

 on the first evening. I propose therefore to follow that precedent 

 and to lay before you this evening some few points on a question 

 which I consider one of paramount importance to South Africa 

 and which it is unfortunately necessary to constantly remind the 

 farming community of, in order to ensure a lasting agricultural 

 prosperity. We have in South Africa considerable quantities of 

 minerals which undoubtedly have a very important bearing upon 

 its prosperity, yet agriculture must be considered as the main and 

 permanent foundation upon which the future progress of the nation 

 must rest. You will, I think, agree with me that the mass of the 

 agricultural population of South Africa are greatly lacking in the 

 enlightenment in regard to science in its application to the cultiva- 

 tion of the soil which is so essential to the proper development of 

 the land. It is in the hope that, like drops of water which — 

 continually falling upon a stone— eventually make an impression, 

 my words to-night upon the necessity for the application of 

 chemistry in agriculture, being a repetition of what has been urged 

 so often by others, may lead to some impression being made upon 

 some minds which have not paid attention heretofore to what 

 scientists have propounded on the subject. I do not propose to 

 go very deeply into the question as I scarcely feel capable of doing 

 so ; I ask you therefore who are present and who are i)robably in 

 many cases far better able to speak on the subject than I, to excuse 

 me if what I lay before you is more of an outline of what is the 

 case and what should be done as it appears to one who, not being 

 a scientist, takes the deepest interest in the country and recognises 

 the value of science, rather than a concise and detailed exposition 

 which one would expect to be delivered to a gathering such as 

 the present, representing as it does science in all its branches. 



All of us are aware that many farmers have neither the time 

 nor the opportunity for studying scientific books of reference and, 

 though I am now addressing this scientific audience, I think you 

 will allow that even had they both time and opportunity, they 

 might find considerable difficulty in fully understanding many of 

 the technical expressions made use. of in those books. Not being a 

 scientist and only just having been reading some of those very 

 scientific works to which I have alluded, I want to try and express 

 myself on the subject before us to-night as if I was trying to explain 

 to other unscientific i)ersons what I had gleaned from my study, 

 and I hope that in this manner I may make it comprehensible to all. 



The principal foundation of success in agriculture in this country 

 and other parts of the world is the knowledge by those who are 

 cultivating the land of what they are doing and the conception on 

 their part that the soil contains valuable constituents, and that 

 in the growing of crops and in the grazing of land they are taking 

 out of that soil certain of those constituents which if not restored 

 artificially must render the land sterile and incapable, after a certain 

 period of time, of producing what it had yielded hitherto. The 

 failure might be complete or such crops as are reaped might not 

 be of the standard required to make a farm pay. We have many 

 instances where certain produce has been raised in the first year 



