570 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 
THE ABSOLUTE DEPENDENCE OF AGRICUL- 
TURAL PROGRESS UPON EXPERIMENTS, AND 
SUGGESTIONS IN REGARD TO SOME DIREC- 
TIONS IN WHICH EXPERIMENTAL WORK 
SHOULD BE DONE FOR THE AGRICULTURE 
OF AUSTRALIA. 
By W. M. Farrar, M.A. 
(Wheat Experimentahst Department of Agriculture, New 
South Wales.) 
» 
Ir will be well to begin by explaining what is meant by 
“ agricultural progress’ in this short discussion. The word 
“ agricultural’ is confined to its proper meaning; and the 
“ progress” which is meant is to come from improvements 
in the cultivation of the soil, and be in the direction of 
causing it to furnish to crops more of the plant-food it con- 
tains. That substantial, and possibly very great, improve- 
ments can be made in this direction, I think probable. 
Improvements of this kind scarcely appear to have been 
attempted until late years. They seem to have been 
regarded as impracticable; but from the knowledge we 
have now gained of the nature of the soil and of the forces, 
physical, chemical, and biological, upon which its fertility 
depends so largely, the time has now come, I think, for 
taking in hand this line of work in the manner in which, 
from its importance, it deserves to be taken up. Those of 
our scientific workers who have been engaged upon the 
practical application in the field of scientific knowledge to 
agriculture, and the increase of crop-yields by its use, seem 
to have confined themselves too much to the subject of 
hand-feeding crops with manures. This subject has been 
much studied; and, in relation to our knowledge of the 
nutrition of plants, very likely pretty exhaustively. I 
think we ought to leave this groove, at any rate for a time, 
and attack the subject in the field from the side I am pro- 
posing; and I hope in this paper to succeed in placing be- 
fore you some ideas in regard to the manner in which this 
should be done. 
The conditions, for which the necessity of improvements 
of this character is always before me, are those of the semi- 
arid and arid portions of Australia, and what I shall say 
on the subject will have reference to these conditions 
in particular. In those parts of Australia, remoteness 
