xxvi BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION 



undertaken by any individual, or even by any public institu- 

 tion." The proposal was soon enlarged, and became national 

 in its character. The subscriptions received amounted to about 

 1160. At Mr Lawes' desire, the greater part of this sum 

 was spent in the erection of a new laboratory, which was 

 opened at a gathering of distinguished agriculturists on July 

 19, 1855, the Earl of Chichester presiding on the occasion. 

 The speeches made by Mr Lawes, Dr Gilbert, and others, have 

 fortunately been preserved. Mr Lawes, on this occasion, paid 

 a warm tribute to the work done by Dr Gilbert. Besides the 

 gift of the laboratory, Mr Lawes received a handsome silver 

 candelabrum, bearing a suitable inscription. In later years the 

 laboratory was found too small for the preparation and storage 

 of the numerous samples, and additional buildings were 

 erected. 



Mr Lawes was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 

 1854, and in 1867 one of the Royal medals was awarded 

 to him and Dr Gilbert for their systematic researches upon 

 agricultural chemistry. Seven papers by Lawes and 

 Gilbert have been published in the Society's Philosophical 

 Transactions. 



The connection of Mr Lawes with the Royal Agricultural 

 Society was naturally a close one. He became a member of 

 the Council in 1848, and was afterwards a vice-president and 

 trustee. In 1893 the presidency of the Society was offered to 

 him, but declined on account of his advancing years. In the 

 Journal of the Society the greater number of the reports on 

 the Rothamsted agricultural investigations have been published ; 

 forty-six reports had thus appeared before the year 1900. In 

 1876 he took an active part in arranging for the commencement 

 of the field experiments conducted by the Society at Woburn, 

 in Bedfordshire. These experiments consisted in repetitions 

 of the experiments at Rothamsted upon the continuous growth 

 of wheat and barley with known manures, the experiments in 

 this case being made upon a purely sandy soil ; they also 

 included rotation experiments designed to test the manurial 



