OcTOBER 30, 1913] 
pose to confine myself to the last quarter of a century 
—a period which covers what I may perhaps be per- 
mitted to call the revival of agricultural science. 
Twenty-five years ago institutions concerned with 
the teaching of agriculture or the investigation of 
agricultural problems were few and far between. I 
do not propose to waste time in giving an exhaustive 
list, nor would such a list help me in developing 
the argument I wish to lay before the section. It will 
serve my purpose to mention that organised instruc- 
tion in agriculture and the allied sciences was already 
at that date being given at the University of Edin- 
burgh and at the Royal Agricultural College, whilst, 
in addition, one or more old endowments at other 
universities provided courses of lectures from time to 
time on subjects related to rural economy. Agricul- 
tural research had been in progréss for fifty years at 
the Rothamsted Experimental Station, where the 
work of Lawes and Gilbert had settled for all time 
the fundamental principles of crop production. Inves- 
tigations of a more practical nature had also been 
commenced by the leading agricultural societies and 
by more than one private landowner. 
In these few sentences I have endeavoured to give 
a rough, but for my purpose sufficient, outline of the 
facilities for the study of agricultural science twenty- 
five years ago, at the time when the county councils 
were created. Their creation was followed almost 
immediately by what can only be called a stroke of 
luck for agriculture. The Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer found himself with a considerable sum of 
money at his disposal, and this was voted by Parlia- 
ment to the newly created county councils for the 
provision of technical instruction in agriculture and 
other industries. 
Farmers were at that time struggling with the bad 
times following the wet seasons and low prices of the 
seventies and ’eighties, and some of the technical 
instruction grant was devoted to their assistance by 
the county councils, who provided technical instruc- 
tion in agriculture. Thus, for the first time consider- 
able sums provided by the Government were avail- 
able for the furtherance of agricultural science; and, 
although at first there was no general plan of work- 
ing and every county was a law unto itself, the result 
has been a great increase of facilities for agricultural 
education and research. 
Almost every county has taken some part. The 
larger and richer counties have founded agricultural 
institutions of their own. In some cases groups of 
counties have joined together and federated them- 
selves with established teaching institutions. For my 
purpose it suffices to state, without going into detail, 
that in practically every county, in one way or other, 
attempts have been made to carry out investigations 
of problems related to agriculture. 
Twenty years after the voting of the technical in- 
struction grant to the county councils, Parliament has 
again subsidised agriculture, in the shape of the 
Development Fund, by means of which large sums 
of money have been devoted to what may be broadly 
called agricultural science. It seems to me that the 
advent of this second subsidy is an occasion when this 
section may well pause to take stock of the results 
which have been achieved by the expenditure of the 
technical education grant. I do not propose to discuss 
the results achieved in the way of education, although 
most of the technical instruction grant has been spent 
in that direction. It will be more to the point in 
addressing the Agricultural Section to discuss the 
results obtained by research. 
The subject, then, of my address is the result of 
the last twenty years of agricultural research, and I 
propose to discuss both successes and failures, in the 
NO. 2296, VOL. 92] 
NATURE 
279 
hope of arriving at conclusions which may be of use 
in the future. 
Agricultural science embraces a variety of subjects. 
I propose to consider first the results which have been 
obtained by the numerous practical field experiments 
which have been carried out in almost every county. 
I suppose that the most striking result of these during 
the last twenty years is the demonstration that in 
certain cases phosphates are capable of making a very 
great increase in the crop of hay, and a still greater 
increase in the feeding value of pastures. This in- 
crease is not yielded in all cases, but the subject has 
been widely investigated, and the advisory staffs of 
the colleges are in a position to give inquirers trust- 
worthy information as to the probability of success 
in almost any case which may be submitted to them. 
This is a satisfactory state of things, and the question 
naturally arises: How has it come about? 
On looking through the figures of the numerous 
reports which have been published on this subject, it 
appears at once that in many cases the increase in 
live-weight of sheep fed on plots manured with a 
suitable dressing of phosphate has been twice as great 
as the increase in weight of similar animals fed on 
plots to which phosphate has not been applied. Now 
about a difference of this magnitude between two 
plots there can be no mistake. It has been shown 
by more than one experimenter that two plots treated 
similarly in every way are as likely as not to differ 
in production from their mean by 5 per cent. of their 
produce, and this may be taken as the probable error 
of a single plot. Where, as in the case of many of 
the phosphate experiments, a difference of 100 per 
cent. is recorded, a difference of twenty times the 
probable error, the chances amount to a certainty 
that the difference is not an accidental variation, but 
a real effect of the different treatment of the two 
plots. The single-plot method of conducting field 
trials, which is the one most commonly used, is 
evidently a satisfactory method of measuring the 
effects of manures which are capable of producing 
roo per cent. increases. It was good enough to 
demonstrate with certainty the effects of phosphatic 
manuring on many kinds of grass land, and it is to 
this fact that we owe one of the most notable achieve- 
ments of agricultural science in recent years. 
Another notable achievement is the discovery that in 
the case of most of the large-cropping varieties of 
potatoes the use of seed from certain districts in 
Scotland or the northern counties of Ireland is profit- 
able. This is another instance of an increase large 
enough to be measured accurately by the single-plot 
method. Reports on the subject show that seed 
brought recently from Scotland or Ireland gives in- 
creased yields of from 30 to 50 per cent. over the 
yields produced by seed grown locally for three or 
more years. E : ‘ 
That the single-plot method fails to give definite 
results in many cases where it has been used for 
manurial trials is a matter of common knowledge. 
Half the reports of such trials consist of explanations 
of the discrepancies between the results obtained and 
the results which ought to have been obtained. The 
moral is obvious. The single-plot method, which 
suffices to demonstrate results as striking as those 
given by phosphates on some kinds of pasture land, 
signally fails when the subject of investigation is 
concerned with differences of 10 per cent. or there- 
abouts. : ; 
Before suggesting a remedy for this state of things 
it will be well to consider the allied subject of variety 
testing, which has been brought into great prominence 
recently by the introduction of new varieties of many 
