NOVEMBER 30, 1916] 
NATURE 
261 
nitrates, a quantity as great as is contained in a 24-Ib. kinds of seeds—the farmer does not grow for con- 
tracts, but always for what manufacturers would call 
bushel crop of wheat. ; 
lt appears that this wastage of nitrates in winter 
can be greatly reduced, but the process requires suit- 
able crops and rapid cultivation methods. Neither of 
these ought to be beyond the power of the agriculturist 
to provide. The possibilities are many. Wibberley 
has discussed several schemes of continuous cropping 
that satisfy these requirements, giving a succession of 
crops which cover the land at the critical time when 
losses would occur. And our implement-makers are 
steadily increasing the number and effectiveness of 
the implements, while motor traction promises also to 
increase the speed of working. 
A further direction in which improvement is possible 
is in cultivation. Reference has already been made to 
the necessity for increasing the speed of ploughing so 
as to get the work forward and enable the farmer 
to plough just as much as he likes in autumn, or, if 
he wishes, to get in a bastard fallow or a catch-crop. 
The motor-plough seems the only solution, and as soon 
as the difficulties of engine construction are got over 
and the price becomes sufficiently low, I think it must 
displace the horse-plough as inevitably as the railway 
displaced the stage-coach. Both the soil and the 
human factors tend this way. So long as a man and 
two horses, and in some parts of the country a man 
and a boy and three horses, can only manage to plough 
an acre a day, it is obvious that the farmer cannot 
afford to pay more than a small wage for the work; 
but when a man on a motor-plough can do sever.i 
aie a day a considerably higher wage becomes pos- 
sible. 
The last economy to which I shall refer is the choice 
of crops. The farmer grows his crops for profit, and 
clearly ought to select the most profitable for the pur- 
pose. This can only be done by keeping accounts. 
No crop ought to be grown that does not pay its way; 
it should be displaced by one that does. On our own 
farm we find that wheat, oats, and barley are about 
equally profitable; but the crops jn the root- or fallow- 
break vary enormously—potatoes bringing in most 
profit, while swedes, on the other hand, are invariably 
grown at a loss on our land. I believe this would be 
found not uncommon in the southern part of England. 
Amos and Oldershaw have recently gone into the cost 
of silage crops in these conditions. More experiments 
and inquiries are greatly needed to widen the range 
of this class of crops, and give us something that will 
be as useful as swedes but more profitable. 
Besides these improvements in crop-production which 
affect all farmers, even the best, there are two other 
ways in which we can hope for further developments. 
One is to raise up the ordinary farmer to the level 
of the good one. The average crop of wheat for the 
country is officially reported to be 32 bushels, but no 
good farmer would be content with less than 40. If 
we accept the official average there must be a good 
amount of wheat grown at much less than the best 
that is possible even now. A vast amount of educa- 
tional work has to be done to spread the knowledge of 
the best methods, varieties, manures, etc. 
The other is to extend the area of Jand under cultiva- 
tion. There are still wastes to be reclaimed, as Mr. 
Hall is reminding us, while even on farmed land the 
proportion under the plough each year is only small, 
and is constantly decreasing. Grass-land only produces 
about one-half of what arable-land yields, and it is 
imperative to the proper development of the country 
that some of it should be broken un. The farmer 
knows this. but he does not nut his knowledge into 
practice. He cannot always afford the risk There is 
a fundamental distinction between farming ang manu- 
facturing that is often overlooked in discussions on the 
subject. Except in rare cases—sugar beet and some 
NO. 2457, VOL. 98] 
**stock.’’ The manufacturer makes a contract to sup- 
ply certain goods at a certain price; he knows what 
his machinery will do, he can insure against many 
of his risks, and get out of the contract if others befal 
him. He knows to a penny how much he will be 
paid, and so he can calculate to a nicety how much 
he can afford to spend, and how far he can go in 
introducing new methods. Now the farmer cannot 
do this. He cannot be certain what yield or what 
price he will get. He starts spending money in August 
| on a crop that will not be sold for fifteen months, and 
| he has no idea how much money he will receive in 
return. The whole thing is a hazard which cannot be 
covered by insurance. Obviously, then, the farmer 
must leave a big margin for safety, so he balances 
his risks by laying down some of his land to grass, 
where the risks are at a minimum. But when you 
ask him to intensify his methods, and, as a necessary 
corollary, to break up some of his grass-land, he has 
a perfect right to ask who is going to bear the extra 
risk. 
The problem has been burked in the past, but must 
be faced in the future. It is essentially a question of 
distribution of risk, and it ought not to be beyond the 
political insight and economic wisdom of those whose 
business it is to settle these matters. 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
Suerristp.—Dr. W. E. S. Turner has been appointed 
lecturer in charge .of the new department of glass 
technology. Mr. G. A. Birkett, formerly of the Uni- 
versity of Liverpool, has been appointed to the new 
Vickers lectureship in Russian. A permanent appoint- 
ment is deferred until the conclusion of the war. 
The council: has nominated Mr. A. J. Hobson, J.P., 
to be a pro-chancellor of the University in succession 
to the late Sir George Franklin. 
Miss H. pe PENNINGTON, assistant lecturer in chem- 
istry at the Blackburn Technical School, has been 
appointed research assistant to Prof. J. B. Cohen at the 
University of Leeds. 
We learn from the Miinchener Medizin. Wochen- 
schrift that the medical faculty of the University of 
Gottingen has received two legacies, each of 10,000 
marks, under the wills of the late Prof. von Esmarck 
and of the late Prof. Paul Ehrlich, of Frankfurt. 
The money will form a fund for assisting needy medi- 
cal students. 
IN connection with the present campaign for the 
preservation of infant and child life, the governing 
body of the Battersea Polytechnic has arranged for 
a public lecture to be given by Dr. C. W. Saleeby. 
The lecture will be entitled “‘The Saving of_ the 
Future,” and will be held at the Battersea Poly- 
technic, Battersea Park Road, S.W., on Thursday, 
December 7, at 7.30 p.m. No tickets of admission are 
required. . 
Tue fifth annual Conference of Educational Associa- 
tions is to be held in the University of London ‘on 
January 1-6 next. The inaugural address is to be 
delivered on January 1 at 3 p-m. by Mr. A. L. Smith, 
master of Balliol. Among the associations taking 
part in the conference this year are the School Nature 
Study Union, the Child Study Union, the Committee 
for the Development of Regional Survey, the Associa- 
tion of Science Teachers, and the National Association 
for Manual Training. Among the large number of 
addresses arranged for may be mentioned the follow- 
ing :—The possible educational value of kinemas, by 
