520 Abstract Report of Agricultural Discussions. 



of soils, so that from a great number of experiments we may eliminate 

 the distiu'bing influences which the variations in soils necessarily 

 l)rocluce on the general result. Now, I have mentioned some of the 

 conditions, and I might, had time permitted, have named a good many 

 more, which it appears to me to be most essential to keej) in view in 

 performing trials in the field ; and I would conclude by inviting the 

 co-oj)eration of the practical farmer, for it is impossible that the scien- 

 tific agriculturist or the chemist can himself perform trials in the field 

 without the co-oi)eration of the farmer. If the farmer should take up 

 this matter of field trials in a right spirit, I have no doubt that much 

 useful information might, in the course of time, result from the united 

 labours of the practical farmer and the scientific agriculturist. We do 

 not want, at the present time, what is called purely practical field ex- 

 periments — experiments which, as I have already remarked, have only 

 an individual value, at the best. It is systematic experiments that are 

 calculated to establish those general scientific truths which require 

 afterwards to be introduced under all the modifying influences that are 

 known only to individual farmers who are difterently situated in 

 different parts of the country ; it is experiments which establish 

 general principles that we require much more m-gently than what 

 are commonly called practical experiments, which have for their 

 avowed object simply the profit of the farmer. 



Mr. HoLLAA^D, M.P., suggested that as an ordinary farmer could not, 

 as a rule, aflbrd to give uj) a quantity of land for the purjiose of 

 exj)eriment, he might ascertain the nature of his field in the first 

 instance, and then when sowing his crop devote a broad band through 

 the middle of the croji to the object of experiment. If he attended 

 to all the instructions which had been given, the result would, he pre- 

 sumed, be i^retty much the same as if he were to set apart a piece of 

 land expressly for experimental purposes. Perhaps one end of the field 

 might vary from the other end of the field, so that the experiment 

 might have its variations, still, with a little care, and communication 

 with scientific men, as opportunity offered, a gi-eat deal of good might 

 be effected, and yet little expense be incurred in the approj)riatiou of 

 land to this purpose. Was there any objection to an arrangement of 

 that kind '? for he fancied that that was the only way in which the 

 Society could get the common farmer to work with them. 



Professor Voelcker : No doubt there are certain experiments which 

 might be carried out usefully by the ordinary farmer ; but there are 

 a great many others which cannot be carried out by him. Indeed it is 

 almost necessary that some plan should be arranged similar to that 

 which had been adopted on Mr. Lawes' experimental farm. We stand 

 at present very much in need of what in Germany are called experi- 

 mental stations, or experimental farms, which differ from experimental 

 farms as they are known in this country. For systematic experiments 

 a few acres of ground, perhaps not more than ten, would suffice ; and in 

 conjunction with those experimental acres there should be a laboratory, 

 so that the manures might be analyzed and the produce examined 

 there ; and even the collecting of the crops should be performed by 

 assistants accustomed to carefully measming and weighing, and 



