

OBITUARIES, FOREIGN. (LEATHES.) 



525 



application of this fertilizer to turnips, continued 

 the experiment in the open field for two years 

 longer, and in 1842 took out a patent for treating 

 mineral phosphates with sulphuric acid and be- 

 came the pioneer manufacturer of commercial fer- 

 tilizers. He associated with himself in 1843 Dr. 

 J. Henry Gilbert, who was fresh from his studies 

 in agricultural chemistry under Liebig, and to- 

 gether they started the Rothamsted agricultural 

 experiment station, the earliest of all with the 

 exception of Boussingault's station at Bechel- 

 bronn in Alsace, antedating by nine years the 



I German station at Mockern, and by the length 

 of a human generation the station at Middletown, 

 Conn. Their experiments covered the field of 

 stock breeding and the feeding of animals as 

 well as farm crops. In relation to the latter their 



I favorite method of investigation was to sow the 

 chief rotation crops, such as wheat, barley, oats, 

 beans, clover, turnips, or potatoes, each through 

 a long succession of years on the same piece of 

 ground, a crop of each one on one plot year after 

 year with no manure at all, on another plot with 

 barnyard manure, on other plots with all the dif- 

 ferent varieties of manufactured manures. They 

 studied also different courses of rotation without 

 manure and with the various kinds of manure. 

 On one field wheat has been grown every year for 

 over fifty years without any manure, and given 

 an average yield of between 13 and 14 bushels an 

 acre. Experiments in manuring mixed perennial 

 rasses have yielded valuable practical results, 

 specially by showing how greatly meadows are 

 ffected by the weather. The benefits of nitro- 

 ;enous manures to cereal crops, of potash to 

 eguminous plants, and of phosphates to roots 

 ere first demonstrated at Rothamsted. The 

 elative merits of sulphate of ammonia and of ni- 

 trate of soda as a source of nitrogen, the com- 

 position of rain and of drainage waters, the utili- 

 zation of sewage, and the making of silos were 

 other lines of inquiry. In 1801 a memoir on the 

 sources of nitrogen for the nutrition of plants 

 was published which marks an epoch in the de- 

 velopment of physiological botany, proving that 

 plants do not in general assimilate free nitrogen, 

 though in a paper issued in 1891 it was admitted 

 that leguminous crops do absorb in their growth 

 considerable quantities of uncombined nitrogen, 

 Lawes having revised to this extent the opinions 

 that he had reaffirmed ten years previously in his 

 treatise on Fertility, which laid down the prin- 

 ciple that the store of nitrogen contained in the 

 soil or supplied by manures is the source of prac- 

 tically all the nitrogen found in vegetation. The 

 experiments on animals were conducted by watch- 

 ing the increment of live weight in cattle, sheep, 

 and hogs obtained in a given time by feeding dif- 

 ferent quantities, kinds, and combinations of 

 'ood; also the relative growth and development 

 of different parts and organs of the animals; the 

 elations of age and other conditions to the fat- 

 tening of animals; the composition of the manure 

 ;n relation to the food consumed; and the influ- 

 rcce of different kinds and quantities of food on 

 he yield and composition of milk. The source 

 f fat in the food and of muscular energy, and 

 he comparative values of animal and vegetable 

 bods for human beings, were studied 'incidentally, 

 "he results of the Rothamsted experiments were 

 ublished in the Journal of the Royal Agricul- 

 ural Society from 1847 onward, and in serial 

 ublications and in about 130 special memoirs, 

 otable among which are a paper printed in 1847 

 ealing with turnip culture, one on the amount 

 f water given off by plants that was published 

 n 1850, papers issued in 1851 and 1855 treating of 



the fattening qualities of different breeds of sheep, 

 one in 1858 on the composition and quality of 

 various fattened animals, one in 1866 on feeding 

 stock with malted and unmalted barley, one in 

 1875 on the valuation of unexhausted manures, 

 one in 1878 on nitrification, one in 1879 on higher 

 farming as a remedy for lower prices, one in 1879 

 giving the results of twenty years of experimenta- 

 tion on the mixed herbage of permanent meadow, 

 one in 1880 on the English climate in relation to 

 wheat crops, one in 1881 on the composition of 

 rain and drainage waters, one in 1882 on nitrogen 

 in soils, one in 1887 on the growth for many years 

 in succession of root crops on the same soil, one 

 in 1888 on the growth of potatoes for twelve 

 years on the same land, one in 1889 on growing 

 leguminous crops in succession, one in 1890 on 

 the food of agricultural crops, one in 1891 on the 

 sources of the nitrogen of leguminous crops, one 

 in 1892 on allotments and small holdings, one in 

 1893 on home produce, imports, consumption, and 

 price of wheat over forty harvest years, one in 1894 

 on crop rotation, one in 1895 on the feeding of 

 animals for the production of meat, milk, and 

 manure and for the exercise of force, one in 1896 

 on the depression in the price of grain and the 

 production of wheat, one in 1897 giving new 

 tables of the value of unexhausted manures and 

 dealing with the question of compensation, one 

 in 1898 on the valuation of manures obtained 

 from food given for milk production, and a later 

 one treating of the growth of the sugar beet and 

 the manufacture of sugar in the United King- 

 dom. Sir John Lawes, who was created a baronet 

 in 1882, made yearly an estimate of the wheat 

 crop of Great Britain and Ireland. He was a 

 member of the Royal Agricultural Society from 

 1846, and was active in establishing its experi- 

 mental farm at Woburn in 1876. The laboratory 

 in which most of the chemical work connected 

 with the experiments at Rothamsted was con- 

 ducted was itself built and equipped by means of 

 a subscription raised among British agriculturists 

 in 1854, and intended as a testimonial to Mr. 

 Lawes in recognition of the national importance 

 of the work he was carrying out. In the same 

 year he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, 

 and in 1867 he and Sir Henry Gilbert jointly re- 

 ceived the royal medal. In order that the work 

 at Rothamsted might go on after his death, and 

 that the continuous experiments conducted from 

 the beginning without a break might still be 

 persevered with, Sir John La\ves in 1889 set apart 

 by a trust deed the sum of 100,000, with the 

 laboratory and certain areas of land, for the 

 prosecution of the investigations in perpetuity. 

 Leathes, Stanley, an English clergyman, 

 born in Ellesborough, England, March 21, 1830; 

 died in Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, April 30, 

 1900. He was educated at Cambridge, and took 

 orders in 1856. He was curate of St. Martin's, 

 Salisbury, 1856-'5S; rector of St. Philip's, Re- 

 gent Street, London, 1869-'80; of Cliff e-at-Hoe, 

 1880-'89; and of Much Hadham from 1889 until 

 his death. He held the chair of Hebrew at King's 

 College, London, from 1863, and was a prebend 

 of St. Paul's from 1870. His published works 

 include The Birthday of Christ (London, 1866) ; 

 A Short Practical Hebrew Grammar (1868) ; The 

 Witness of the Old Testament to Christ (1868); 

 The Witness of St. Paul to Christ (1869): The 

 Witness of St. John to Christ (1870); Truth 

 and Life (1872) ; The Structure of the Old Testa- 

 ment (1873): The Cities Visited by St. Paul 

 (1873) ; The Gospel its own Witness (1874) ; The 

 Religion of the Christ (1874); The Grounds of 

 Christian Hope (1877); The Christian's Creed 



