EXPERIMENTS IN THE GROWTH OF 

 BARLEY AND ROOT CROPS. 



By Professor BENRY TANNER, F.C.S., Sfc. 



T has been j)i'oposecl tliat some explanation sliould be 

 given of tlie Experiments upon Barley and Eoot Crops 

 which are being carried out at Bradford Abbas by 

 Professor Buckman. The experiments are, as a matter of fact, 

 enquiries made of Nature, but at present we have not received 

 her several replies. Great progress has been made in the con- 

 veyance of the voice by means of the telephone ; we thereby hear 

 an answer which is uttered at a great distance. The Phono- 

 graph enables us to preserve and reproduce words at any time 

 after their utterance, but unfortunately we have not got an 

 instrument which will give an answer before it has been made 

 either by the human voice or by nature ; perhaps our fi'iend Pro- 

 fessor Buckman will see to this. Hence we have to wait for the 

 replies to the enquiries we are making by these experiments, 

 and for the information we seek. It may, therefore, be desirable 

 under these circumstances to refer to the past, and offer some 

 statement of the steps which have already been taken, and which 

 have led to the further inquiries now being made at Bradford 

 Abbas. 



Nearly twenty years ago Dr. Edwin Lankester proposed to 

 illustrate in a popular manner the composition of our various 

 kinds of Food, by exhibiting the several groups of material of 

 which food is composed, according to the duties each of these 



