xxviii BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTIOX 



His writings were always marked by great originality, they 

 were also very practical in character. When bringing forward 

 the results of recent scientific enquiries, he would avoid as far 

 as possible the use of scientific language, and speak as a farmer 

 to farmers. The fertihty of the land and its relation to 

 landlord and tenant, and the manure value of foods, with the 

 compensation due to an outgoing tenant for unexhausted 

 manures, were subjects which he made peculiarly his own. 

 For many years he sent annually to the Times newspaper, in 

 the early autumn, an estimate of the quantity of wheat yielded 

 by the preceding harvest in this country. This estimate was 

 based on the produce of the standard plots in the experimental 

 wheat field at Rothamsted ; as the produce here was over or 

 under the average, so it was assumed would be the general 

 produce of the country. The estimates thus made proved 

 generally to be near the truth. 



For his great services to agriculture Mr Lawes was created 

 a baronet by the Queen in 1882. The degree of LL.D. was 

 conferred on him by the University of Edinburgh in 1877; 

 D.C.L. by Oxford in 1893; and Sc.D. by Cambridge in 1894. 

 He received the Legion of Honour from Napoleon III. ; he 

 was also a Chevalier du Merite Agricole. He was elected a 

 corresponding member of the Institute of France in 1879. In 

 1863, he received a Gold Medal from the Russian Government. 

 In 1881, the German Emperor awarded a Gold Medal for 

 Agricultural Merit to Lawes and Gilbert. 



Sir John Lawes early conceived the idea of perpetuating 

 the Rothamsted investigations by placing the laboratory and 

 fields in the hands of trustees with a permanent endowment 

 for their maintenance. He first spoke of this in his speech at 

 the opening of the new laboratory in 1855. In 1872 he 

 publicly announced that he had set aside £100,000 for this 

 purpose. By deeds executed by him in February 1889, the 

 laboratory and experimental fields were leased to Sir John 

 Lubbock, William Wells, Esq., and Sir John Evans, as 

 trustees, for ninety-nine years at a peppercorn rent. To the same 



