Two Tears' Work in the Chemical Branch. 



TWO YEARS' FIELD WORK OF THE CHEMICAL 



BRANCH. 



By F. J. Howell, Ph. D. 

 (A paper read before the Shepparton Conference, July 1902.) 



PART 1— THE NORTHERN AREAS. . 



The primary object of the farmer, pat in a few words, is to 

 increase the productive value of his land ; to produce large and 

 profitable crops while preserving, and even increasing the fertility of 

 the soil that yields them. Till chemistry came' to his aid the efforts 

 of the farmer in this direction rested on pure empiricism. It is true 

 he had discovered certain facts of importance before ever this science 

 came to assist him ; but these facts wei-e stumbled on accidentally — 

 were the results only of chance tests. With Liebig a new system was 

 introduced, and the great German built upon the foundations of 

 chemistry the scientific agriculture that is revolutionising the farming 

 methods of to-day. To no branch of science does agriculture owe 

 such a deep debt of gratitude as it does to the science of chemistry. 

 The various ways in which the investigations of chemistry have 

 founded, and are intimately bound up with the very existence of the 

 great agricultural industries, would form a subject too wide for one 

 lecture, or for a dozen lectures. I shall make no attempt this after- 

 noon to show how this is so. I am going to treat only of the work of 

 the chemist in connection with the practical operations of the farm ; 

 of the investigations of my branch in the field, carried out to assist the 

 primary object of the farmer in increasing to its full extent the pro- 

 ductive power of his land ; of experiments conducted to determine soil 

 deficiencies, the effect of various fertilizers intended to replace them ; 

 methods of application, systems of soil treatment, and the profits that 

 can be shown to follow all such operations. These are all points 

 which will be at once recognised as of great practical importance to 

 the farmer. 



The Work of Two Years. 



I am going to treat of the work of the last two years only, because 

 of my association with this work during that period, and because the 

 larger and more important developments in field work have taken 

 place within that time. But these larger developments were preceded 

 by long years of pioneer work ; of arduous, earnest efforts that met 

 with little support and less sympathy. It was another blazed the path 

 for the success of the operations of the two last years, and the State of 

 Victoria owes a deep debt of gratitude to its late agricultural chemist, 

 Mr. A. N. Pearson, for the first initiation of a truly scientific system of 

 agricultural field experiments. For this we have undoubledly to thank 

 Mr. Pearson. 



