NA TURE 



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THURSDAY, JUNE 7, .1906. 



THE ROTHAMSTED EXPERIMENTS. 

 The Book of the Rothninsicd Experiments. By A. D. 



Il.ill. Pp. xI + :?()4. (London: John Murray, 1905.) 



I'rice iDi. (h/. net. 

 A I. THOUGH tho Rothamstcd cxpcrimcnls have 

 ■i V formed the subject of over 200 papers and re- 

 ports, no book describing- them has hitherto been 

 published in this country. The present volume, by 

 Dr. Gilbert's successor, is therefore a welcome ad- 

 dition to agricultural literature. We do not forget 

 thai two works entitled " The Rothamsted Experi- 

 ments " were published respectively in 1888 and in 

 1897, but the former was an account of a few ex- 

 periments only, and the latter discussed the practical 

 results rather than the experiments themselves. 



Mr. Hall's book has been written chiefly for the; 

 general reader who may be interested in agricultural 

 experiments, but it is also intended for the student 

 and the te:ichcr. It opens with biographical notices^ 

 of the two remarkable men who have made the name^ 

 of Rothamsted familiar. Then follow three intro- 

 ductory chapters — the first mainly historical, the 

 second dealing with meteorological observations, and 

 the third describing the soils of the experimental 

 fields. At the end of the book there are three ap- 

 pendices, the most important being a list of Rotham- 

 sted publications. These sections of the work, with 

 the index, occupy some 90 out of a total of 334 

 pages. The remainder of the book consists of ten 

 chapters, each dealing with one experiment, or with 

 groups of similar experiments. The text is illus- 

 trated by fourteen full-page plates, and by a large 

 number of diagrams, while figures obtained in the 

 <x|)erirnents occupv ninety-tvco tables. 



Those who conduct field experiments will read with 

 some surprise the account given of the soil of 

 Rothamsted. The estate was recently surveyed by 

 Mr. H. B. Woodward, of the Geological Survey, and 

 he described the experimental fields as resting on a 

 very mixed deposit of clay-with-flints overlying chalk. 

 The chalk is extensively piped, and appears occa- 

 sionally in irregular pinnacles near the surface. The 

 soil is a grey, flinty, or pebbly loam, ten inches or 

 more in thickness, and varying in character accord- 

 ing to the number of stones in it. From this descrip- 

 tion the soil would appear to be anything but an 

 ideal one for agricultural experiments, but we know- 

 that on the whole it has been satisfactory. It would 

 seem, therefore, that where the soil is of moderate 

 depth, variations in the subsoil may not Interfere 

 seriously with field plots. 



Lavves and Gilbert had wide interests, and at one 

 lime or another they touched upon almost every im- 

 portant subject dealt with by the agriculturist. Their 

 main work was on what may be described as the 

 balance-sheet of the soil, and most of the crop and 

 feeding experiments were planned to throw light 

 upon the soil's losses and gains; but they found time 

 for investigations on many other subjects, such as 

 NO. 1910, VOL. 74] 



the source of fat in the animal body, the economic 

 feeding of live-stock, ensilage and sewage farming. 



The experiments upon field crojjs at Rothamsted 

 were chiefly of one type. The land was divided up 

 into plots, usually of from one-eighth to one-half of 

 an acre in size; the plots received different 

 manures such as farmy.-ird manure, superphos- 

 phate, nitrate of soda, and the sulphates of am- 

 monia, potash, soda, and magnesia. The artificial 

 manures were employed in various coinbi nations. 

 With few exceptions, plots received the same manures 

 year after year, and the field was occupied by the 

 .same crop either permanently, as in the case of the 

 wheat and barley experiments, or so long as the crop 

 could be got to grow, as in the c.ise of clover and 

 potatoes. The primary object of these experiments 

 was to ascertain how crops grow, and more especi- 

 ally to discover what capacity the important farm 

 crops have of obtaining nourishment from unmanured 

 soil, and what class of manure is most necessary 

 for the healthy development of each. As the work 

 progressed, other points were brought to light 

 — thus, for example, in connection with the wheat 

 experiments it was shown (i) that the fertility of 

 ordinary soils was of two types — one quickly ex- 

 hausted (condition), the other of a very enduring 

 character (inherent fertility); (2) that high farming 

 is not a remedy for low prices in the case of wheat; 

 (3) that superphosphate and the sulphates of potash 

 and ammonia do not occur in appreciable quantities 

 in the drainage waters from corn-fields, but that 

 nitrates readily pass through the soil and are lost. 

 In the experiments on meadow herbage, as with 

 wheat, it was soon shown what classes of manure 

 were required, but after a time it became apparent 

 that different species in the meadow were differently 

 affected by the treatment the plots received, and for 

 many years the interest has centred in the varying 

 fortunes of the combatants in this " battle of the 

 meadow." There is an excellent account of these 

 changes, and the diagrams in this section of the book 

 are particularly striking — not so striking, however, 

 as the plots themselves now are. There are no field 

 experiments so full of interest to the naturalist as the 

 plots in the park at Rothamsted. 



Mr. Hall gives a very good summary of the 

 Rothamsted work, and his book forms a complete 

 guide to the experiments. It contains just the inform- 

 ation which the visitor wants, and it is also well 

 adapted for the agricultural student. But in the in- 

 terests of the visitor and the student we hope that a 

 new edition of smaller size may be published before 

 long. .\ royal octavo page. " English " type, and 

 thick paper make the book in its present form an 

 admirable library edition, but the student wants some- 

 thing more compact and less expensive. 



We venture to make a further suggestion. It is 

 that in subsequent editions the " Practical Conclu- 

 sions " which are appended to most of the chapters 

 should be omitted. They do not harmonise with the 

 rest of the work — in a good many cases, indeed, they 

 seem to be based on general agricultural principles 

 rather than on results obtained in the Rothamsted 



