106 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[July, 



land Railway, near Harpenden Station. En- 

 tering the property by a drive through an 

 extensive parlt of noble old oaks, such as can 

 rarely be seen out of England, the visitor is 

 brought by a dense bovver of laurelbay, which 

 completely hides the house and lawn, suddenly 

 in view of an old English mansion of the 

 Tudor style of architecture, the older part of 

 ■which dates from the days of Edward IV., 

 and which has been extended in the same 

 style during the reign of James I., and in more 

 modern days until it has quite an extended 

 range, ending in a beautiful modern conserva- 

 tory opening upon the lawn and the lovely 

 garden. The whole front of this interestmg 

 house was, in the early days of June, covered 

 with a profusion of the most beautiful roses, 

 trained to the eaves on trellises, almost hiding 

 the quaint old windows, with their antique 

 glass and thick-set mullions. The construc- 

 tion is brick, with rounded battlements. We 

 cannot pause to describe the ancient oak 

 carvings of the great hall, or the banqueting- 

 room and library, all paneled in English oak 

 and ornamented with old family portraits and 

 curious historical relics, for we have to do 

 now chiefly with practical results of the most 

 remarkable series of experiments in agriculture 

 which the world has seen at the hands cer- 

 tainly of any private individual. 



John Bennet Lawes, Esq., was the founder 

 of the Rothamsted experimental station, and, 

 although in full vigor, has passed a long and 

 active life in prosecuting his work, with the 

 aid, since June, 1843, of his well-known asso- 

 ciate. Dr. J. H. Gilbert, F. R. S., &c., and 

 a well-known member of the leading scientific 

 bodies of tlie United Kingdom. Coming into 

 possession of his hereditary property in 1834, 

 Mr. Lawes commenced his experiments with 

 diflerent fertilizing materials, iirst in a small 

 way with plants in pots, and soon on a larger 

 and increasing scale in the field. This, it will 

 be observed, was before Liebig commenced 

 his renowned labors in agricultural chemistry, 

 and when, aside from the early labors of Davy, 

 there were scarcely any available researches 

 in this line except those of De .Saussure. Hap- 

 pily for the cause of scientific agriculture 

 everywhere, Mr. Lawes was moved to devote 

 his abundant wealth and all his time and 

 talents to a systematic course of research, for 

 the love of it and for the good of mankind, 

 commencing at a time of lile when the tradi- 

 tions of English country life a young man is 

 expected to devote himself chiefly to horses 

 and hounds. Disconnected with any external 

 organization, and relying solely on his own 

 resources, Mr. Lawes has steadily for nearly 

 half a century prosecuted his researches with 

 an unflinching assiduity and a clear-sighted- 

 ness, independence and success rarely indeed 

 found in any department of original work. 

 Feeling, as he expressed to the writer, that he 

 has after all these years only commenced a 

 work which will demand many lives yet to its 

 completion, he has set apart a fund of .£100,- 

 000 and a certain breadtli of land for the con- 

 tinuance of these investigations when he is 

 dead and gone. 



To give those unacquainted with the subject 

 some notion of the object and mode of con- 

 ducting such investigations it will suHice to 

 say that the problem presented was to deter- 

 mine the actual relations of the various crops 

 grown on farms to the soil, and the various 

 manures or fertilizers used to promote their 

 growth, and to do this on a scale of such 

 magnitude, Ijoth for area and time, as would 

 settle upon a strong and safe basis the funda- 

 mental principles of agricultural practice. It 

 is difficult to overestimate the value and im- 

 portance of such researches, if properly con- 

 ducted, as they affect the very foundations of 

 national prosperity and individual happiness 

 in all civilized communities. 



In 1854-.'5 the researches of Messrs. Lawes 

 and Gilbert had already attracted so much at- 

 tention that a new laboratory was built for 

 them by public subscription among agricul- 

 turists and presented to Mr. Lawes in July, 

 1855, from which the old barn-laboratory in 

 which the work was begun was abandoned. 



and it has since been carried on in the new 

 one, which has become so well known to 

 chemists the world over. Dr. Gilbert has 

 had the direction of the laboratory since 1843, 

 aided by a consideralile staff of assistants — 

 two or three chemists and the same number 

 of general assistants, one of whom is usually 

 employed in routine chemical work. The 

 general assistants superintend the field ex- 

 periments, the making of manures, the mea- 

 surement of the plots of land, the application 

 of the manures and the harvesting of the 

 crops ; also, the taking and preservation of 

 samples for analysis and for the museum of 

 collections, contained now in about 30,000 

 bottles, all systematically classified and accu- 

 rately catalogued, forming an amazing record 

 of persistent and well-directed industry. 

 These assistants also superintend the experi- 

 ments made on the animals. As occasion re- 

 quires there is a botanical assistant, aided by 

 half a dozen boys, and at times also by one of 

 the general assistants, who may at other 

 times undertake the botanical work. There 

 also are two or three computers and record 

 keepers, who are occupied in calculating and 

 tabulating field, feeding and laboratory re- 

 sults, copying, &c. Besides the permanent 

 laboratory staff, chemical assistance is fre- 

 quently engaged in London or elsewhere. In 

 this way, for some years past, Mr. R. Richter, 

 of Berlin, has been almost constantly occupied 

 with analytical work sent from Rothamsted. 

 In addition to all this are the laboratory servi- 

 tors, while the field experiments and feeding 

 employ a considerable number of agricultural 

 laborers. This statement will give some idea 

 of the extent of the work and how thorough 

 and systematic it is. The investigations 

 naturally fall under two distinct heads : First, 

 field experiments — those on growing plants, 

 &c. — and second, experiments on animals, 

 (fcc. The general scope of the field experi- 

 ments has been about as follows : To grow 

 some of the most important crops, which were 

 usually grown in rotation, each separately, 

 year after year for many years in succession 

 on the same land, and to do this (1) without 

 manure, (2) with farm-yard manure, and (3) 

 with a great variety of chemical manures ; 

 the same manure being, as a rule, applied 

 year after year on the same plot of ground 

 and on the same crop. These experiments 

 have been varied by an actual course of rota- 

 tion with different manures. It will readily 

 be seen that to follow out such a system 

 thoroughly and obtain from it the utmost 

 information which it is capable of affording 

 must involve no small labor and many details, 

 reaching over long periods of time" and de- 

 manding a perfect system of account and re- 

 cord to prevent loss and error from the failure 

 of memory or the confusion of data. For 

 example, wheat has been thus grown for 

 thirty-five years in succession on thirteen 

 acres of land, divided into thirty-five plots, 

 and this has been varied on other plots with 

 various kinds of wheat and with wheat alter- 

 nated with fallow for twenty-seven years on 

 one acre in two plots. In like manner for 

 barley, oats, beans, clover, turnips, sugar- 

 beet, mangel-wurzel and potatoes for various 

 areas and times, as high as thirty-two years in 

 succession and for like times. 



On permanent grass land, for centuries in 

 grass, similar treatment by use of diflerent 

 manures and no manure, always on the .same 

 plots, has been carried on for twenty-three 

 years. Now, from all these experimental plots 

 samples of the crops grown are carefully taken 

 and brought to the laboratory, where weighed 

 portions of each are dried and preserved in sys- 

 tematically labeled bottles for future reference 

 and analysis. Duplicate portions of each 

 sample are desiccated at 212 degrees Fahren- 

 heit, the loss of weight determined and the 

 dry matter burnt to ash (crematio) upon, sheets 

 of platina in muffles of cast iron maintained 

 day and night, and at all times, at low red 

 heat. Then the amount of ashes is accurately 

 determined, and the ashes themselves pre- 

 served in glass bottles for future reference or 

 analysis. By this laborious process, conducted 



with scrupulous exactness, are the materials 

 obtained upon which are founded conclusions 

 from which there is no escape. In a large 

 number of cases — many thousands — the nitro- 

 gen is determined, and more than five hun- 

 dred complete ash analyses have been made to 

 illustrate the influence of season, manures, 

 exhaustion, &c., upon crops. Even the good 

 Dr. Gilbert by turns becomes a miller and 

 spends days in the flouring mill in selected 

 cases of experimentally grown wheat, to de- 

 termine by milling process the proportion, of 

 milling products, the exact chemical composi- 

 tion of which is afterwards determined in the 

 laboratory. The experiments upon permanent 

 meadow or park grass land have been con- 

 tinued over twenty years and have been at- 

 tended with curiously instructive and useful 

 results. It appears from a careful botanical 

 scrutiny by actual count of all the product 

 cut upon a given area of land which had been 

 in grass for centuries, and enriched only with 

 barn-yard manure, that the flora contained 

 about fifty species of plants, which were tabu- 

 lated according to their respective abundance 

 by actual count and with their systematic 

 names. It is found that the more worthless 

 of these meadow plants are subordinated by 

 treatment to the more useful in such a way 

 that, in case of the continuous treatment by 

 certain mineral manures only, while the an- 

 nual average clip for twenty years has risen 

 from twenty-one and a quarter hundred weight 

 producee per acre, weighted as hay, to sixty- 

 two and a half hundred weight per acre, the 

 number of species of plants has diminished 

 from fifty to about twenty, and these the most 

 useful of the grasses, &c. Not that the other 

 thirty have been exterminated, but rather 

 that they are smothered and subordinated 

 by the vigor of the more valuable plants, al- 

 though in the case of some of the most nox- 

 ious weeds they seem to be exterminated. 



Those curious in such matters will wish to 

 know what the exact treatment in this case 

 was, and the facts are of sutticient interest to 

 merit the attention of any thoughtful reader. 

 The treatment was exclusively by mineral 

 manures, without a particle of any kind of 

 vegetable or carbonaceous substance whatever. 

 For example, in this particular case the an- 

 nual quantities per acre employed were as fol- 

 lows, viz. : 



Poundn. 



Sulphate of potassa 300 



Sul)ihate of soda JOO 



Sulphate of magnesia 100 



Superphosphate of lime 3_>^ cwt 392 



Auimouia salts, equal parts sulphate and muriate of 



ammonia.. . ; 800 



Total per acre mineral manure 1,692 



To this quantity was added on another equal plot 



silicate of soda 400 



Total 2,092 . 



The silicate of soda was commenced only in 

 18G2, or thirteen years after the series of ex- 

 periments were entered on. Its effects are 

 most marked, for while the average for the 

 first twenty years of hay cut was about 61 

 hundred weight, it rose for the twenty-second 

 season (1877)^ to the enormous aggregate of 

 110 hundred weight I But it should be stated 

 that in this year tliere were two cuttings or 

 crops of 60J and 484 hundred weight respec- 

 tively, and that the continuously unmanured 

 ground next adjoining gave in the same season 

 also two crops of, respectively, 10^ and 25| 

 hundred weight, or a total of 44| hundred 

 weight. In other words, the land continu- 

 ously fertilized with mineral manures of the 

 above composition gave 5i tons of hay per 

 acre and the adjacent unmanured gave 2 1-5 

 tons. It will be seen that the only source of 

 nitrogen added by this treatment was from 

 the salts of ammonia, while the carbon was 

 evidently obtained by the plants from the car- 

 bonic acid of the atmosphere, since not a 

 particle of carbonaceous food was supplied 

 and the soil had become i)ractically exhausted . 

 of carbon. The chemical composition of the 

 soil in this, as in every case, for each 6 inches 

 in depth to a total depth of 54 inches, was 

 carefully determined, and also the dry heath j 

 ash, nitrogen, woody fibre, fatty matter audi 



