S20 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— M. 



Afternoon. 



Visit to Department of Animal Pathology, National Institute of Agri- 

 cultural Botany and Animal Research Station. 



Saturday, August 20. 



Excursion to Cressing Temple, Braintree ; Lord Rayleigh's Farms, 

 Hatfield Peveril ; Henry Ford Institute of Agricultural Engineering ; 

 Little Hallingbury Park, Bishop's Stortford. 



Monday, August 22 



Discussion on The practical problems of crop production (lo.o). 



Mr. J. A. McMillan. — Crop husbandry. 



At heart the farmer is a scientist. Many of the broad principles in crop 

 husbandry have been established through the cumulative experience of 

 successive generations of tillers of the soil. The scientist has discovered 

 the reasons underlying many of these principles, often after long and 

 patient investigation, and in doing so has demonstrated improved methods 

 of crop production. It is only comparatively recently that he has turned 

 his attention to problems that appear beyond the solution of the farmer or 

 that have arisen with changing economic conditions. 



More recent tendencies are towards a sj'stem of sound rotational farming. 

 The value of animal manure has been rediscovered and the place and balance 

 of artificial fertilisers in the rotation, rather than for the individual crop, 

 are the subjects of new investigations. The older accepted methods of 

 cultivation are being called into question ; the much wider use of mechanical 

 power holds out new possibilities. 



Many important problems await solution, for example, in the fields of 

 drainage, cultivation and weed control. It has become increasingly evident 

 of late, however, that the translation into practice of the many contributions 

 of science in the above and other directions is dependent largely on the 

 economic condition of the farming industry. 



Prof. F. L. Engledow. — The place of plant physiology and of plant 

 breeding in the advancement of British agriculture (10.30). 



In growing any crop the two main biological considerations are which 

 variety to use and how to grow it. These respectively link agriculture with 

 plant breeding and with physiology. Of the controllable factors in crop 

 growing, crop rotations and soil cultivations are the chief. Our knowledge 

 of these is traditional and no longer adequate to modern circumstances. 

 The secret of the whole matter is to discover not merely the extent to which 

 treatment aflFects yield, but how in terms of plant growth treatment influences 

 yield. Thus the great task of physiology in agriculture is to equip the 

 experimenter in husbandry with tests or indices of plant growth in relation 

 to yield. 



. The objective of breeding (in Britain) is to produce new varieties which 

 bring the farmer a greater net cash return than existing ones. Breeding is 

 still pre-eminently an art and the grand problem of applied genetics is to 

 elevate this art into a systematic science. This involves the interpretation 



