

26 



feature here was that ordinary dung gave almost the same results 

 as cake fed dung, no advantage accruing from the cake. 



THE NEW FARM. 



Up till recently the Rothamsted Experimental Station had 

 only five "fields, and as these were fully occupied with the classical 

 experiments no land was available for new work. In 1911, 

 however, an additional 230 acres were taken on a long lease and 

 were gradually got into order ; they are farmed largely without 

 stock, manures being purchased and everything sold off, this 

 method having certain advantages when experiments are to be 

 undertaken. There being no buildings available, some were 

 erected — stables, stalls for six bullocks, a covered manure yard, 

 and the usual chaffing room, granary, store for artificial fertilisers, 

 etc. In addition, a large Dutch barn has been built, with stout 

 wooden posts set in concrete and affording 8,550 cubic yards 

 capacity, the cost of which was only £\21 . 



Much of this land is farmed in the ordinary way, but from 

 time to time additional areas are brought into experiment ; this is 

 done in a definite systematic manner to test some method or 

 principle devised in the laboratory. The usual course is that the 

 laboratory investigations clear up some point in soil fertility or in 

 plant nutrition, and suggest some way in which the growth of the 

 plant might be increased. The method is carefully tested by pot 

 experiments carried out under carefully controlled conditions in the 

 pot culture house, and the laboratory experiments are revised in the 

 light of the results obtained. Thus the principle of the method is 

 established. It does not follow, however, that the method will work 

 in the field : the weather, the subsoil, the difficulties of manipulation 

 and other causes may all operate against it and reduce or nullify its 

 effects. Field experiments are therefore made, first on a small 

 scale, and then if need be on a larger one. 



Broadly speaking, there are two ways in which soil fertility 

 investigations may be applied to agriculture : they may lead to 

 increases in crop or they may enable the farmer to obtain the same 

 crop at lower cost. There are limits set by the climate to the 

 possibilities of increasing the crop : but there is no limit to the 

 farmer's desire to lower the cost of production. 



Another guiding principle is that so far as possible old methods 

 are utilised and developed instead of seeking to bring out quite 

 new ones. The old methods have many advantages : they are 

 effective or they would not have survived, they can be worked on 

 the farm, and they are capable of improvement. 



In laying out new experiments at Rothamsted it is unnecessary 

 to conduct simple manurial trials except with new fertilisers. 

 The old plot experiments admirably demonstrate the properties of 

 the artificial manures and their effects on the crop and the soil : our 

 newer experiments, therefore, start out from the basis thus 

 acquired. 



One of them is directed to the study of problems revealed by 

 the periodical surveys of the plots, one of which is now in progress. 

 The manures applied in certain cases contain 80 to 200 lb. of 

 nitrogen, but we only recover some 50 or 60 lb. in the crop and the 



