Agricultural Journal of Victoria. 



The Commencement of Field Work. 



In a masterly contriLutioii on " Field Manure Experiments in 

 Victoria," not yet out of the Government Printer's hands, Mr. Pearson 

 ^ives the history of the movement in this State. From that publication 

 I glean that the first suggestions for the establishment of experi- 

 mental fields were made to the Minister for Agriculture by the 

 chemical branch in 1886. The suggestion received the sanction of the 

 Minister, but little or no support from the agricultural societies, and it 

 remained for an officer of the Lands Department to secure the names 

 of sixteen farmers who expressed their readiness to experiment on 

 various crops. Out of the sixteen fields, six, it was stated, showed 

 decisive results. A crop of sorghum at Dandenong was raised on one 

 of the plots fi^om one-third of a ton to 16 tons, and the pea crop from 

 If bushels to 30^ bushels per acre. Remarkable increases were shown 

 in a barley crop at Mooroopna, a wheat crop at Parwan, an oat and 

 maize crop at Berwick, and a hay crop at Balaclava. As a result of 

 these experiments, the pamphlet, "The Farmer's Guide to Manuring," 

 was written, and published by order of the Honorable J. L. Dow, then 

 Minister for Agriculture. Between this date and 1898 there were 

 a number of successful experimental fields established, principally in 

 the southern districts. With two exceptions, however, 1 find no 

 records of successful experiments in wheat-manuring in the northern 

 districts. The manurial dressings advocated up to 1897 or 1898 were 

 heavy, costing £1 to £3 an acre. It was probably this fact that 

 prevented a larger support being given to the idea. As far as I am 

 aware, it was the favourable results obtained by a South Australian 

 farmer using much smaller quantities that led to a reduction in such 

 dressings, while the light applications at present general in Victoria, 

 and which might, I think, be claimed as the special introduction of our 

 chemical branch, were suggested also by the action of a Victorian 

 farmer, which I shall refer to later on. 



My Appointment to the Chemical Branch. 



When I commenced my lectures in the year 1 899 throughout 

 Victoria, I found that the feeling of the average farmer was not one of 

 sympathy for the work I had taken up. The idea seemed ridiculous 

 to the maprity that science could come down and enter into a 

 friendly partnership with the man at the plough, and that the much 

 laughed-at expert and the stiff-necked cultivator could exchange 

 friendly ideas ; that they could afterwards leave with a mutual resjject 

 one for the other ; with a compact between the two for a strong- 

 co-operative effort to put questions to the soil and to get answers. But ' 

 the thing happened, and the experimental field became a thing of 

 interest from one end of Victoria to the other. There were 270 such 

 fields put down in the year 1900. The initial difficulties of a new 

 movement of such magnitude were many. Officers had to be rapidly 

 trained to the work in all its branches. Delays on farms were frequent, 

 and the newness of the thing caused it still to be regarded by some 

 with more curiosity than interest, and, in cases, with a leavening of 



