Notes, "^^Communications and Reviews. 427 



Agriculture and Soils of Kent, Surrey, and Sussex. — By Hall 

 anil Russell.' — The reader familiar with the many agricultural 

 " Surveys '' written by or published under the auspices of Arthur 

 Young in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, 

 cannot have helped feeling deep regret that nothing had been 

 done in the whole of the nineteenth century to irapi-ove upon 

 that great master's w'ork. It has been possible to believe that 

 all the advance of science of the last thirty years had done 

 nothing towards the enlightenment of the agriculturist who 

 wished to investigate the district in which he lived. Indeed, 

 many during the last decade of the eighteenth century must 

 have been in a better position to obtain reliable information 

 about any particular district in England than have been those 

 living in the first decade of the twentieth century. The book 

 under review% however, has now, as regards the three counties 

 treated of, completely altered that state of affairs. Mr. A. D. 

 Hall and Dr. E. J. Russell have scientifically investigated the 

 South-Eastern district, and in this book their published account 

 of the survey cannot fail to convince even the most prejudiced 

 of the great value of agricultural science as an adjunct to 

 husbandry. It is quite impossible in the space available to 

 convey an adequate conception of all that this modern survey 

 entails. The natural features of the district, the minutest 

 particles of the rocks which give rise to them, which have, 

 after weathering, produced the most fertile or the most barren 

 soils, are factors which the authors have explored, analysed, 

 and explained in such a way as to show how they and one 

 thousand other matters go to the determining of successful or 

 unsuccessful farming. Investigations have been begun such as 

 are likely to prove of much importance to other districts, as well 

 as to the one under consideration ; for instance, on page 59 (et 

 seq.) there is given an account of the botanical analysis of two 

 pastures — one good, the other only moderate. The herbage per 

 se is not found to account for the difference of stock-carrying 

 capacity in the two fields, and the authors carry the investiga- 

 tion further, but warn the readers that their " explanation 

 . . . must, therefore, be taken as a tentative conclusion only." 

 The matter of why one field will " feed a bullock " and another 

 will only "run a store," is one on w^ich more knowledge is 

 much wanted, and it is to be hoped that the phenomena deter- 

 mining this problem will be further investigated in other parts 

 of England. The thorough investigation of the agricultural 

 practice of the district, the large number of analyses taken from 

 all types of its soil, over a hundred of the results of which are 

 published in the book, together with the investigation of climate 



i To be obtained at the offices of the Board of Agriculture ami Fisheries, 

 4 Whitehall Place, London, S.W. Trice 2s. M. 



