ARTIFICIAL MANURES 275 



years on the wane', but has recently been revived), 1 Welsh, 

 Red Polled, Jerseys, Guernseys, Kerry and Dexter-Kerry. 



The increased variety of sheep was also striking ; Leicesters, 

 Cotswolds, Lincolns, Oxford Downs, Shropshires, Southdowns, 

 Hampshire Downs, Suffolks, Border Leicesters, Clun Forest, 

 and Welsh Mountain. 



Pigs were divided into Large, Middle, and Small white 

 Berkshires, any other black breed, and Tamworths. 



Altogether the total number of stock exhibited was 1,858, 

 and the number of implements was 5430. 



In 1840 appeared Liebig's Chemistry in its Application to\ 

 Agriculture and Physiology ', tracing the relations between the 

 nutrition of plants and the composition of the soil, a book 

 which was received with enthusiasm, and completely changed 

 the attitude which agriculturists generally had maintained 

 towards chemistry ; one of contempt, founded on ignorance. 



But, as Mr. Prothero has said, 2 ' if the new agriculture was 

 born in the laboratory of Glissen, it grew into strength at the 

 experimental station of Rothamsted.' There, for more than 

 half a century, Lawes and Gilbert conducted experiments, of 

 vast benefit to agriculture, in the objects, method, and effect 

 of manuring ; the scientific bases for the rotation of crops, 

 and the results of various foods on animals in the production 

 of meat, milk, and manure. 



The use of artificial manures now spread rapidly ; bones, 

 used long before uncrushed, are said to have been first crushed 

 in 1772, and their value was realized by Coke of Holkham, 

 but for long they were crushed by hammer or horse mill, and 

 their use was consequently limited. Then iron rollers worked 

 by steam ground them cheaply and effectively, and their use 

 soon spread, though it was not till about 1840 that it can be 

 said to have become general. Its effects were often described 



1 At the show at Birmingham in 1898 there were 22 entries of Long- 

 horns ; in 1899 a Longhorn Cattle Society was established, and the herd- 

 book resuscitated. More than twenty herds of the breed are now well 

 established. s R. A. S. E. Journal, 1901, p. 24. 



T 2 



