PROFESSOR'S HOUSE 165 



Much may depend upon an official residence; and Dr. 

 Daubeny knew what he was about when he built the fourth 

 and last Professor's House in 1835. The building is still 

 standing almost as he left it, with its Cave Canem painted 

 upon Neapolitan tiles inlaid in the threshold. It has been 

 uninhabited for thirty years, notwithstanding that one of the 

 advertised amenities attaching to the Professorship is that this 

 residence, on the banks of the Cherwell, with five acres 

 of garden and an unrivalled view of Magdalen Tower, is 

 " rent-free ! " 



THE EXPERIMENTAL GARDEN 



Yet say the neighbours when they call 



It is not bad but good land, 

 And in it is the germ of all 



That grows within the woodland. TENNYSON. 



During the first years that Dr. Daubeny had care of the 

 Garden, a portion of ground outside the East Wall was set 

 apart for experiments connected with vegetable physiology, 

 and its applications to agriculture. A plan of this ground, 

 showing the disposition of the crops, was printed in the first 

 edition of the Garden GUIDE in 1850. 



The Garden soil was carefully analysed (an operation which 

 has probably not been repeated since) and its capability for 

 growing standard crops tested. The most important experi- 

 ments made there, with the assistance of the Daubeny 

 Laboratory, proved 



i. That plants only contain the mineral ingredients which 

 are supplied to them by the ground, and hence that the 

 quantity of their earthy contents is determined by the chemical 

 composition of the soil in contact with their roots, although 

 its quality will depend upon the plant itself, those ingredients 

 which are uncongenial to it being excreted, Linnean Trans- 

 actions, 



