Conclusion. 225 



relatively shallow-rooting Poa trivialis predominates on the 

 nitrate plots by reason of its fine surface-roots arresting 

 and taking up the nitrate before it has had time to penetrate 

 too deeply ; this plant invariably makes rapid growth upon 

 the application of the nitrate of soda in the spring. 



The remaining portion of the paper is devoted to a dis- 

 cussion of the botany of each separate plot in each season of 

 complete botanical separation, and is carried out with the 

 same elaborate detail as the earlier portion. No one can read 

 this memoir without being impressed with the great power, 

 too frequently overlooked, possessed by the subterranean 

 members of the plant body in deciding the struggle for 

 existence ; much of the internecine warfare is carried on in 

 the dark. 



Such a splendid series of experiments on grass land has 

 never before been consummated, and the results deserve the 

 most careful study not only of the agriculturist, but of 

 the botanist, the chemist, and the evolutionist. It may 

 perhaps be long before the great lessons learnt in 

 Eothamsted Park have filtered down to those to whom they 

 should be of most practical value, but I do not despair of a 

 time coming when the intelligent manuring of grass lands 

 for very specific objects will form a part of ordinary 

 agricultural practice. Those who put their hands to the 

 plough in the field of agricultural research must be content 

 to trudge along, laboriously and unnoticed, in the furrow. 

 Their discoveries cannot be made in a week, or a month, as 

 are many in electricity or in chemistry, but, like those at 

 Rothamsted, where the investigations were commenced more 

 than half a century ago, they can only be looked, for, even 

 after the expenditure of much thought and of unflagging 

 industry and perseverance, as 



"the long result of Time." 



