84 



NA TURE 



[November 22, 1900 



what they were originally put there— viz., to carry the 

 weight of the train, and not to ineffectually carry an 

 electric current also. Such a system enormously di- 

 minishes the electrolytic corrosion of gas and water 

 pipes ; and, since it is a system that has been designed 

 by a celebrated firm of consulting electrical engineers 

 and carried out by a no less celebrated firm of electrical 

 contractors, surely nobody suggests that it is in any 

 sense impracticable. 



It will be urged, however, that on that vast network of 

 tramways lying between Uxbridge Road and Acton, 

 Hammersmith and Hounslow, Kew and Richmond, &c., 

 which will shortly be worked electrically, two overhead 

 insulated conductors are impossible,and wemust adopt the 

 American system. Yes, but what American system ? The 

 conduit system, for example, employed already for years in 

 Washington, and of which some seventy miles now exist 

 in New York, in which there are no overhead wires at 

 all, but an insulated going and an insulated return con- 

 ductor, both under the street ? Or is all this too modern 

 for England, and can we not project ourselves in advance 

 of where America was several years ago, and must we 

 resort to the old insulated trolley wire to take the current 

 and the wwinsulated rails to bring it back ? 



Why, only recently there was suggested, in one of the 

 technical papers, a proposal to overcome all this difficulty 

 in the case of street electric tramways by taking the 

 current to the cars by means of an overhead trolley wire 

 as hitherto, but using instead of the rails as the return 

 conductor an insulated cable which was connected auto- 

 matically with a car as it passed along and which, differing 

 in potential from the earth by only a few volts, could not 

 give rise to appreciable leakage to the ground. Will an 

 insuperable barrier to a trial of such an English system 

 be found in the fact that its parent, called " surface con- 

 tact," was itself born of English parents in 1881 ? Must 

 it, like an opera singer of forty years ago, first adopt an 

 Italian name before it will be accepted by a British 

 public ? 



Already the Central London Railway Co. has given 

 notice of an application to Parliament for powers to 

 extend westward and eastward ; every week now some 

 new underground electric railway scheme blossoms forth 

 for London, while in a few years electric tramways will 

 doubtless be a common method of conveyance in this 

 city. An urgent question, therefore, that London must 

 ask itself to-day is — Does it want to preserve its gas and 

 water pipes ? 



AGRICULTURAL DEMONSTRATION AND 

 EXPERIMENT. 



'X'HE issue by the Board of Agriculture of the 

 •*■ "Annual Report on the Distribution of Grants for 

 Agricultural Education and Research in the year 1899- 

 1900." directs attention to a department of educational 

 activity which was practically non-existent in the begin- 

 nmg of the present decade. From this it need not be 

 inferred that there was no education in agriculture — both 

 in the class-room and on the field — before this date. 

 The work of Rothamsted, of our leading agricultural 

 societies, and of certain agricultural colleges, is conclu- 

 sive evidence to the contrary. But it was not till some 

 ten years ago that the aid of the State was given to the 

 establishment and maintenance of agricultural depart- 

 ments in provincial colleges, and of independent teaching 

 institutions, which should be in a position to supply 

 education and advice to the agricultural community in 

 their district. 



The report before us summarises the courses of in- 

 struction, attendance, intra- and extra-mural work, and 



NO. 162 1, VOL. 63I 



financial aspects of each of the eleven English and 

 Welsh collegiate departments and teaching institu- 

 tions that divide amongst them 7750/. of the Board's 

 grants. The grants to Scotland have, since 1896, been 

 paid through the Scotch Education Office, so that the 

 work of North Britain does not come within the purview 

 of the Board's report. 



Within certain limits, each institution is allowed to ad- 

 minister its grant and organise its work on the lines that 

 experience has shown to be most consistent with 

 local requirements. As a result, we find considerable 

 variety in the educational ramifications of the different 

 centres, though this variety is less pronounced now than 

 formerly. Practically all the colleges receiving the 

 Board's grants have arranged courses of instruction, ex- 

 tending over two or three years, which lead up to a 

 certificate, diploma or degree. In addition to these 

 extended courses, most of the colleges are now holding 

 short courses of six to ten weeks, Vv-hich are specially 

 designed to meet the wants of young farmers who can- 

 not be spared from home for a longer period. Such 

 classes have proved most useful in America and on the 

 Continent, and they are also being well attended in this 

 country. 



A prominent feature of the work of all the colleges is 

 the conduct of field demonstrations and experiments, of 

 which a condensed account is given in the second section 

 of the appendix of the Report under notice. This form 

 of educational work was vigorously prosecuted by Young 

 and Marshall in the latter half of last century, and, in the 

 face of a mild undercurrent of opposition, it has been 

 continued ever since. It is a form of educational activity 

 that has been largely developed in the United States, 

 in Canada and on the Continent, so that it may fairly be 

 urged that, whatever its weaknesses, it has, on the whole, 

 gained extensive adoption by reason of intrinsic merit. 

 The objectors to this form of education, or means of 

 agricultural improvement, base their opposition on the 

 following grounds : — 



(i) The difficulty of getting a series of plots on soil of 

 equal quality. 



(2) The danger of applying results obtained on one 

 farm to the agricultural practice of another. 



(3) The possible interference with results of extraneous 

 causes, e.g.^ birds, mammals, insects, diseases, weather. 



(4) The misinterpretation of the value of purely 

 quantitative results. 



No doubt the usefulness of field trials may be marred, 

 or worse, by failure under these heads, but the exercise 

 of ordinary care in selecting the land, the rejection of 

 results that have manifestly been unduly influenced by 

 extraneous causes, and, above all, the frequent repetition, 

 both as regards place and season, of the experiments, 

 must in the end furnish a set of figures that cannot fail 

 to prove a useful guide in agricultural practice. If one 

 may not indulge in wide generalisation from even a con- 

 siderable number of concrete cases, that is no valid 

 argument against field trials. On the contrary, it is fair 

 to say that if there are a large number of soils that 

 require special treatment, it is the more necessary that 

 farmers should be made familiar with the arrangement's 

 and method of field trials, in order that they may, by 

 their aid, inquire into the manurial and other require- 

 ments of their own land. In point of fact it is probable 

 that therein lies the main value of such work. No one, 

 who has given careful heed to the experimental results 

 of past years, will deny that, at least under certain con- 

 ditions of soil, some very striking and unexpected results 

 have been obtained. Farmers who see such results, 

 recognise that they have made the acquaintance of facts 

 that they would not have anticipated, and they naturally 

 conclude, and rightly, that if the unexpected has 



