10 



INTRODUCTION 



The Rothamsted Experimental Station was founded in 1843 

 by the late Sir J. B. Lawes, with whom was associated Sir J. H. 

 Gilbert for a period of nearly 60 years. Lawes died in 1900 and 

 Gilbert in 1901 ; they were succeeded by Sir A. D. Hall from 1902 

 to 1912, when the present Director, Dr. E. J. Russell, was 

 appointed. 



For many years the work was maintained entirely at the 

 expense of Sir J. B. Lawes, at first by direct payment, and from 

 1889 onwards out of an income of £2,400, arising^ from the endow- 

 ment fund of £100,000 g-iven by him to the Lawes Agricultural 

 Trust. In 1904 the Society for extending the Rothamsted Experi- 

 ments was instituted for the purpose of providing funds for expan- 

 sion. In 1906 Mr. J. F. Mason built the Bacteriological 

 Laboratory; in 1907 the Goldsmiths' Company generously pro- 

 vided a further endowment of £10,000, the income of which is to 

 be devoted to the investigation of the soil, thus raising the total 

 income of the Station to £2,800. In 1911 the Development 

 Commissioners made their first grant to the Station. Since then 

 Government grants have been made annually, and for the year 

 1922-23 the Ministry of Agriculture have made a grant of £22,030 

 for the work of the Station. Viscount Elveden, M.P., has 

 generously borne the cost of a chemist for studying farmyard 

 manure since 1913, and until his death the late Mr. W. B. Randall 

 defrayed the salary of a biologist. The Sulphate of Ammonia 

 Federation and the Fertiliser Manufacturers' Association jointly 

 defray the cost of a Guide Demonstrator for the field plots. 



The laboratories have been entirely rebuilt. The main block 

 was opened in 1919, and is devoted to the study of soil and plant 

 nutrition problems ; a new block is being erected for plant 

 pathology. The library has been much expanded and now 

 contains some 20,000 volumes dealing with agriculture and 

 cognate subjects. The equipment of the farm has also been 

 expanded. 



The most important development of recent years has been the 

 reorganisation of the work of the Station so as to bring it into 

 touch with modern conditions of agriculture on the one side and 

 of science on the other. The general organisation of the 

 laboratory is now completed ; it is hoped to reorganise in the near 

 future the farm and field work and to improve the field technique. 



The general method of investigation at Rothamsted is to start 

 from the farm and work to the laboratory, or vice versa. 



There are four great divisions in the laboratory — biological, 

 chemical, physical and statistical — which may be regarded as the 

 pillars on which the whole structure rests. But the method of 

 investigation differs from that of an ordinary scientific laboratory 

 where the problem is usually narrowed down so closely that only 

 one factor is concerned. On the farm such narrowing is 

 impossible ; many factors may operate and elimination results in 

 conditions so artificial as to render the enquiry meaningless. In 

 place, therefore, of the ordinary single factor method of the 



