298 



NA TURE 



[July 28, 1904 



to spend on furthering higher agricultural education, 

 has decided that research is outside its purview. 



Yet if there is one field of work of proved public 

 utility which wants the fostering of a central 

 authority it is agricultural research. To begin with, 

 when it is only possible to raise one crop in a year the 

 progress of an agricultural investigation is necessarily 

 slow, and requires to be continued without any 

 external pressure to produce a result quicklv. Again, 

 the problems of the nutrition of plant or animal are 

 so comple.x that the investigator, eliminating variables 

 to obtain a crucial test on some particular point, ap- 

 pears altogether unpractical to the farmer. Now that 

 the main principles of the action of manures and their 

 adaptation to particular crops and soils are known, 

 or-ginal investigation, which is really breaking new 

 ground, will not appeal either by its methods or even 

 by its results to the ordinary man. It will be done for 

 the benefit of the teacher and the expert, and will get 

 translated into practice by modifying the instruction 

 or advice which they give to the actual working farmer. 

 But research of this kind will never obtain the support 

 of the county councils, e.xcept so far as it is undertaken 

 outof pure keenness by individuals on the staff of the 

 various teaching institutions ; the countv councils 

 require demonstrations of the application 'of known 

 principles to local conditions and experiments for the 

 enlightenment of the current generation of farmers. 

 Even with such trials it is difficult to secure the 

 necessary continuity of policy; Somerset has just dis- 

 continued its experimental farm after a very few years' 

 trial, and there is a local movement directed against 

 another county experimental farm which is very 

 ominous in view of the pressure on educational funds 

 farought_ about by the new Bill. For permanent in- 

 vestigations, " travaux a longue haleine," we have > 

 in this country only Rothamsted and the Royal Agri- 

 cultural Society's station at Woburn ; Rothamsted has 

 but 2500^. a year (each American State gets at 

 least 4000L a year for its experiment station!), and is 

 asking for further funds to enable it to do more than 

 continue to exist, yet it does not appear to have con- 

 vinced the Board of Agriculture that research is part 

 of^ education or is worthy of assistance. As to the 

 Woburn farm, who can say what will happen through 

 the financial straits into which the society has been 

 driven by its show at Park Royal? But in any case 

 compare these two solitary agencies with the great 

 organisation possessed by the United States, of which 

 we get a personal impression in Prof. Armstrong's 

 paper in the Mosely Commission reports. Yet it can- 

 not be argued that we need such work any less than 

 America, for even if in England itself " agriculture 

 only stands for shillings where commerce stands for 

 pounds, " the proportion is very different when we look 

 at the Empire as a whole. Teachers and investigators 

 are being constantly called for; how are the experts 

 to be trained, the teachers to be inspired, if there is 

 no adequate provision for research at home? Up and 

 down our dependencies men may be found doing expert 

 work in agriculture, men whose knowledge, both of 

 agriculture and of science, has been acquired by work- 

 ing as assistants in commercial analytical laboratories • 

 these men are doing excellent work, but they cannot 

 wholly escape from the defects of their training. 



Nobody familiar with the facts can fail to recognise 

 the enormous advance that has been made within the 

 last twelve years, before which time agricultural 

 education did not exist for the ordinary farmer; now 

 It IS good " in parts," and the time is ripe for a strong 

 central administration to take the work in hand, level 

 up all round, and put research, which should be the 

 mainspring of the whole, on a sound independent 

 tooting. 



NO. 18 I 3, VOL. 70] 



TWO BOOKS ON LOCAL NATURAL 

 HISTORY.^ 

 ]\/[R. TREGARTHEN'S brightly written and ex- 

 '■'^ quisitely illustrated book is absolutely redolent 

 of the breezy uplands and the surf-beaten beetling 

 cliffs of the western duchy, and is evidently the 

 work of a sportsman-naturalist of the old-fashioned 

 and best type. It is true that the author 

 deals with his subject more from the sporting 

 than from the natural history aspect — and to a 

 great extent with the methods of sport belong- 

 ing to a bygone day — but perhaps it is none the 

 worse for this, being entirely free from all traces of 

 that " faddism " which tends to taint the work of many 

 of the self-styled field-naturalists of to-day. Whether 

 he is describing fox-hunting in the olden time, the 

 habits and wiles of foxes and their cubs, dilating on 

 the fascinations of digging out badgers from their 

 subterranean retreats, or narrating the perils atten- 

 dant on a midnight descent through a tortuous adit 

 to the rocky cave where dwell the seals, he is equally 

 delightful and fresh. All the photographs of 

 animal life, to say nothing of those which portray the 

 striking coast scenery of the Land's End district, are 

 admirably well chosen and well executed, the one of 

 fox cubs herewith reproduced being only a sample of 

 the general excellence of style. 



Although ostensibly devoted to sport, the work 

 contains here and there some interesting observations 

 with regard to the fauna of the county. We are told, 

 for instance (p. 165), that hares are almost non-existent 

 in this part of the country, their scarcity being due 

 apparently not to excessive persecution, but to the 

 unsuitableness of the climatic or other physical con- 

 ditions. Some years ago, upwards of 150 of these 

 animals were turned out in various parts with the re- 

 sult that within a comparatively short period nearly all 

 had disappeared. It is satisfactory, however, to learn 

 that the badger (why will the author call it one of 

 the most ancient of animals?) is as abundant as the 

 hare is scarce, the author stating that it generally 

 shares a burrow with the fox. Seals, too, thanks to 

 their wariness and the almost inaccessible caves they 

 select for their abode, show no signs of decrease on the 

 northern coast. 



To the naturalist, the description of the seal-caves 

 and their living denizens is, indeed, the cream of the 

 whole book, and many readers would, we feel sure, 

 long for an opportunity of beholding the scene de- 

 scribed, were it not for the attendant dangers and 

 difficulties. The particular visit described was made 

 by night at low-water, when the entrance to the cave 

 was barred by exposed boulders, thus rendering it 

 impossible for the seals to escape. " We advanced to 

 the edge of the water," writes the narrator when 

 describing the visit, " with a torch in each hand, hold- 

 ing them well up, and forward at full arm's-length. 

 It was the sight of a lifetime. Five huge beasts, two 

 grey, the rest a dirty yellow, mottled with black spots, 

 lay swaying on the sand, prepared to make a rush — 

 they can shuffle down a slope at a great pace — if we 

 entered the pool ; and these were not all, for in dark 

 recesses beyond I saw indistinct forms move, and once 

 I thought I caught the gleam of liquid eyes." 



The numerous species of sea and shore birds fre- 

 quenting the Land's End claim the author's attention 

 in the concluding chapter, where reference is also 

 made to several of the rarer birds of the land. Both 



1 "Wild Life at Ihe Land's End ; Observations of the Habits and Haunt 

 of the Fox, Badger, Otter, Seal, Hare, and of their Pursuers in Cornwall." 

 By J. C. Tregarthen. Pp. xii+2j6 ; illustrated. (London : John Murray, 

 1904.) Price loj. 6</. net. 



"In the King's Countv." By E. K. Robinson. Pp. viii+352. (London 

 Isbister and Co., 1904.) Price 6s. 



