234 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
The second entry of science into agriculture was entirely different, 
and achieved an astonishing, even dramatic, success. Several quite 
independent movements led up to it. Farmers were themselves beginning 
to formulate their problems more distinctly. A definite and precise state- 
ment was published by the Royal Agricultural Society on its formation 
in 1838, setting forth the problems which had been perplexing the leading 
agriculturists for some time, and insisting on the need to ‘ inquire after 
causes.’ § 
The programme was extensive, indeed we have not completed it yet. 
Although its framers may not have known, the ‘ inquiry after causes ’ was 
already well on the way. The striking feature of the new work was the 
demonstration that the carbon which formed about half the dry matter 
of the crop came from the carbon dioxide of the atmosphere, not from 
humus, as the older philosophers had thought; the agricultural signifi- 
cance was not at first recognised. The question of rotation of crops 
was also being investigated, and in this the British Association had 
taken a leading part. At its first meeting at York, in 1831, Prof. Lindley 
had been asked by the Botanical Committee to present “an account of 
the principal questions under discussion in Botanical Science,’ and in his 
report he included this of root excretions : “the necessity of the rotation of 
crops,’ he said, ‘is more dependent upon the soil being poisoned than 
upon its being exhausted.’ Daubeny, Professor of Botany at Oxford, 
was invited to study the question, and at the 1834 meeting he described 
his plan. Eighteen different crops were to be grown for a period of ten 
years on the same ground, some continuously and some in rotation. The 
crops were to be weighed and analysed, and the effects of continuous 
growth compared with those of the rotation, This was done; it was the 
first continuous and systematic plot experiment ever made. ‘These various 
8 Jour. Roy. Ag. Soc., 1840, vol. i, p. li. 
The problems were :— 
1. Classification of Soils Chemical methods having achieved no decided success, 
would geological methods be better ? To test the possibilities, a survey of the Weald 
of Kent and Sussex was proposed ; this was afterwards put into the bunds of William 
Topley, the founder of Soil Surveys, whose Memoir is one of the great classics of the 
subject. (Jour. Roy. Ag. Soc., 1872, vol. viii (2nd series), p. 241; also Memoirs 
of the Geological Survey.) 
2. Permanent Improvement of Soils—The most effective method of draining. 
3. Productiveness of Seeds.—Comparison of the productiveness of different crops 
and varieties on different soils, including the nutritive and other values of the crops. 
4, Manures.—Studies of farmyard manure, of town wastes, bones, rapecake, &c., 
and ‘ mineral manures,’ lime, chalk, gypsum, marl, saltpetre, peat ashes, salt, &c. 
5. Rotation of Crops.—‘ The influence, sometimes favourable and in other cases 
hurtful, which various crops exercise on others by which they are followed and which 
is now supposed to be occasioned by an excrementitious deposit lett by the roots of 
plants in the soil.’ 
6. Mechanics of Agriculture.—Studies of implements and machines. 
7. Management of Grassland. 
8. Physiology of Agricultwre.—‘ More abstract questions, as for instance, that bone 
manure is beneficial on certain soils, and inefficient on certain other soils—under this 
head we should inquire after causes and endeavour to ‘answer the question, what is 
the constituent element of bone that promotes vegetation on some soils, and how is 
that element rendered inoperative elsewhere ?’ 
9. Livestock and Veterinary Problems and Diseases of Plants.—No details are given ; 
too little was known about any of them. 
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