OF AGRICULTURE. 37 



successfully; that neither the amount of land, nor the 

 funds at their disposal, are such as to admit of any- 

 safe deductions for application in practical agricul- 

 ture from the results ; and that purely physiological 

 problems can be better investigated in the laboratory, 

 or in the greenhouse. He remarks that, owing to the 

 errors necessarily incident to field-experiments con- 

 ducted by those not acquainted with practical agri- 

 culture, the confidence of the practical farmer in the 

 results has been shaken. Indeed, owing to the diffi- 

 culties and cost of such enquiries, if conducted in a 

 truly scientific manner, so as to be applicable for the 

 solution of questions of fundamental and general 

 interest, Professor Maercker concludes that the only 

 field-experiments which it is practicable to carry out 

 in Germany, are such as should be conducted by the 

 practical farmer himself, to test the applicability to 

 practice, of results and conclusions otherwise arrived 

 at; and that, to insure that even such experiments 

 are not misleading, similar ones should be conducted 

 on different descriptions of soil, and for several years 

 in succession. 



I have already quoted the opinion of Sir Humphrey 

 Davy, that scientifically conducted field-experiments 

 should be undertaken by proprietors of land, who by 

 their education are fitted to form enlightened plans, 

 and by their fortunes are able to carry them into 

 execution ; and when I tell you that the Kothamsted 

 field-experiments, independently of all the laboratory 

 investigations connected with them, cost considerably 

 more, and those which have been undertaken by the 

 Duke of Bedford at Woburn for the last seven years, 

 on behalf of the Koyal Agricultural Society of Eng- 

 land, and which are under the direction of Dr. 

 Voelcker, not much less, than £1000 annually, you 



