PRACTICAL PURPOSE 281 



the phosphates are almost entirely soluble in water, 

 and which has a most beneficial influence upon growth 

 upon heavy soils, as well as upon light. This production 

 of this fertiliser was the result of deliberate intention 

 and practical purpose, and it has proved of the highest 

 importance in agriculture. 



About six million tons of superphosphate are now 

 manufactured annually, and the influence of this com- 

 pound on the productiveness of the soil in civilised 

 countries is incalculable. The farmer is no longer 

 dependent, as he was formerly, upon bone or guano for 

 a supply of phosphates, for the vast deposits of phos- 

 phatic rocks and minerals can be converted into a powder 

 which enables him to restore or increase the fertility of 

 his land in the most effective and economical manner. A 

 dressing so small as half a hundredweight cast over an 

 acre has been found to double the yield of cereals in soil 

 of Southern Australia ; and the effect has been found 

 equally marvellous in other places. 



Lawes was thus the actual benefactor of mankind to 

 whom Swift gave so high a place in Gulliver's Travels. 

 For more than fifty years he carried on agricultural 

 experiments at Rothamsted, in Harpenden, Hertford- 

 shire, with Sir J. H. Gilbert, who had been a pupil of 

 Liebig's ; and the work of these two men has made the 

 Rothamsted Experiment Station renowned throughout 

 the world. A memorial tablet in Harpenden Parish 

 Church bears the appropriate inscription : "In affec- 

 tionate memory of Sir John Bennet Lawes, Bart., 

 F.R.S., born at Rothamsted, Dec. 28, 1814, died at 

 Rothamsted, Aug. 31, 1900. He used his long life 

 and his great knowledge and experience as an agri- 

 cultural chemist and as a practical and scientific 

 farmer, in the pursuit of truth, and for the benefit of 



