24 AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH AND THE FARMER : 



limited funds available it has been impossible to secure directly 

 the physical data required relating to soils in different areas. 

 A scheme has recently been devised which will, it is believed 

 go far to meet the case. Through the medium of the Board of 

 Education and the Science Masters' Association, arrangements 

 have been made under which any school or training college which 

 is able and wiUing to conduct simple soil experiments is put into 

 communication with the Rothamsted authorities, and is supplied 

 by them with detailed instructions. The results of the experi- 

 ments give very useful information regarding the physical 

 properties of the local soils examined in the school, and are 

 correlated with particulars of the type of soil — as shown by 

 mechanical analysis — and of the climatic conditions. As the 

 experiments are carried out on the same lines in all schools co- 

 operating, the results obtained will be comparable. The scheme 

 is only in its initial stages, but seventeen schools have agreed to 

 carry out experimental work on these lines, and supplied valuable 

 information regarding the moisture contents of the'r local soils 

 during the drought of 1920. 



Cultivation. 

 We may now consider in rather more detail the work that is 

 in progress on the subject of what is coming to be known as the 

 science of cultivation. The importance of this was emphasised 

 earlier in this chapter, but it will bear repeating. At present, 

 the cultivation of the soil is an art that has been acquired as the 

 result of ages of experience. It has, however, no scientific 

 foundation, in the sense of being based on scientific knowledge. 

 The aim of a farmer in cultivating the soil by various means is 

 to produce good tilth, but we do not know exactly what " tilth " 

 is, and until we know this we cannot expect to secure any great 

 improvement on present methods, nor can we proceed with any 

 degree of assurance to adapt the design of our tillage implements 

 to different conditions of soil and climate or to varying speeds of 

 travel. The present position may be made clear by a comparison 

 which, although not complete in several important respects, 

 is sufficiently accurate for our purpose. The designer of a ship 

 can be furnished with the scientific information he requires, and 

 he can be tolerably certain that when the ship is launched it 

 will do the work that he wants it to do. The designer of a plough, 

 on the other hand, can be told at present very little about the soil 

 in which the plough is going to work, and if his plough is in any 

 way different from existing types he cannot tell, until he actually 

 tests it in the field, whether it will give even approximate satis- 

 faction. The designer of tillage implements must always be handi- 



