PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 673 
primitive man. Already much may be done to set up a better microflora and 
fauna in the soil by improving its physical conditions. The good effects of such 
processes as liming and drainage are largely due to the encouragement that is 
thereby afforded to the valuable organisms. Soil inoculation with such neces- 
sary bacteria as those which fix nitrogen when living in the nodules on the 
roots of leguminous plants has been widely attempted, but with very little 
practical success. The failures have generally been due to the fact that soils 
from which the nodule organism is absent are without it because of some 
chemical or physical defect; it is not sufficient merely to seed it with the 
organism ; the soil itself must first of all be brought into a fit state to maintain 
its existence. The best of grass seeds would be wasted unless the land on which 
they are sown is first made clean and fertile. The amelioration of soils on 
their physical side, by bringing clay and silt to the sands, sand and coarse 
particles of various kinds to the clays, will eventually be taken up on a great 
scale, now that engineering has made it possible to move earth wholesale by 
cheaper means than by primitive spade and cart. I have seen a cold clay 
carrying miserable pasture converted into good market garden land by nothing 
more than the application of a thick layer of town refuse and ashes; only 
organisation is needed to make such processes economic, even when the imme- 
diate, and not the ultimate, return is reckoned. 
From the point of view of manures we shall have to look forward to an 
ultimate scarcity of nitrogenous fertilisers; the exhaustion of sodium nitrate is 
only a question of time; the present sources of sulphate of ammonia will dis- 
appear with the coal, and the water power which is now giving us nitrate of 
lime and cyanamide will then be too precious to be used in making fertilisers. 
Even if the new process for the synthesis of ammonia proved as economical 
as is expected, we ought still to depend upon the natural processes of nitrogen 
fixation, and make the farm self-supporting as regards nitrogen at a high level 
of production. The clover crop in the rotation usually followed in England 
will, under present conditions, gather in enough nitrogen for the growth of 
about twenty-four bushels of wheat to the acre, an equal quantity of barley, 
and twelve tons of turnips. How can we similarly maintain production at a 
level of forty bushels of wheat, with other crops in proportion, yet without any 
nitrogenous fertiliser from outside? 
A more immediate problem of the same kind is before the investigator; all 
‘around our great cities exist great market gardening industries, which have been 
built up by means of the cheap supplies of stable manure that were to be obtained 
therefrom, The market gardener close to London and as far afield as Bedford- 
shire, rendered thin sands and gravels fertile by using forty tons or more of 
London dung every year, but the advent of the motor car has curtailed, and will 
eventually put an end to, that supply, in which case how is the market gardening 
to be carried on? Nitrogen compounds and the other bare elements of plant food 
can be bought, but humus is also necessary to get these thin soils to yield a 
proper growth; what needs to be worked out is the cheapest and most effective 
way of utilising leguminous green crops and the other nitrogen-fixing organisms 
of the soil to maintain the fertility of such land, keeping in view the fact that it 
cannot be thrown out of productive cultivation for any length of time. What is 
needed is not a field experiment merely, but a discussion of a whole system of 
cultivation on the economic as well as on the scientific side. This suggests the 
general consideration that economic research in agriculture is still in its infancy, 
How often do we find close at hand two farmers, both good practical men, 
with entirely divergent views on the rotation to follow or the management of 
their stock, one swearing by early maturity and a forcing diet, the other by 
cheap if slow production. The advantage of one system over the other is not 
a mere matter of opinion and personal idiosyncrasy, it is possible to reduce it to 
terms of pounds, shillings, and pence. The prime necessity is the application to 
farming of a system of costs book-keeping, such as prevails in a well-organised 
business. It is possible to obtain such figures from a farm; the method is as yet 
perhaps too complicated for the ordinary farmer to follow, but as an instrument 
of investigation in the hands of a teacher at one of the agricultural colleges it 
may be made to yield results of great value both to the individual farmer and to 
all those who have to take more general views of agriculture. 
1914. pap. 4 
