INTRODUCTION 5 



Plant Nutrition problems. In accordance with this scheme a capital 

 grant of £3100 was made, and a maintenance grant of £2500 for the 

 current year, and it is expected that an annual grant of this amount will 

 be made to the Station in future. Certain scholarships have also been 

 instituted to provide the training in research work for men who have 

 already qualified in pure science and are desirous of taking up an 

 agricultural career. The holders of some of these scholarships do their 

 work at Rothamsted. 



The field experiments, which began in 1843, have on some of the plots 

 been continued without break or alteration up to the present day ; on the 

 Broadbalk wheat field certain rearrangements were made in 1852, in which 

 year also the barley experiments on the Hoos field began. The legumin- 

 ous crops on the Hoos field were started in 1848 ; the experiments on roots 

 have been continued on the same field since 1843, and on the same plan 

 since 1856. The grass plots began in 1856, and the rotation experiments 

 in 1848. 



It should be remembered that the object of the Rothamsted experi- 

 ments is to study the soil and the plant, and only indirectly to find 

 the most paying method and manuring ; hence neither the nature nor the 

 quantities of material applied are to be taken as indicating the manures 

 to be used in practice. 



A 



