SECTION M.— AGRICULTURE. 



SOIL SCIENCE IN THE TWENTIETH 



CENTURY 



ADDRESS BY 



Prof. J. HENDRICK, 



PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 



It is now about a quarter of a century since Agriculture was constituted a 

 full Section of this Association, and during that time many distinguished 

 leaders in Agricultural Science have occupied the office which I have the 

 high honour to fill this year, and among them have been several agricultural 

 chemists, the names of some of whom have been closely identified with 

 research into the soil and its fertility, but I do not think that any of them 

 has ever chosen the fundamental subject of the soil for his presidential 

 address. I have ventured to take this as the subject of the remarks I 

 propose to make this morning, and while I cannot claim that it has any 

 special relevance to the place of our meeting, to most of the visitors to 

 which the sea and the sand are of more interest than the soil, I dare to 

 hope that the importance of the subject may render it not unworthy of the 

 consideration of a section whose very name means culture of the soil. 



While none of my predecessors has specifically chosen the definite 

 subject of soil knowledge for his Presidential Address, soil science is so 

 fundamental that it was not possible to avoid it in treating of such subjects 

 as the History of Agriculture, Crop Production and its Problems, or 

 Chemistry and Agriculture, the subject of a very recent President. In 

 fact it is not too much to say that hardly any presidential address on 

 Agriculture can avoid touching on soil science at some point. 



It is not necessary for me to labour the importance of knowledge of the 

 soil not only to those interested in agricultural science and research but 

 to the whole community. From the earliest times of civilised human 

 history the soil has played a controlling part in the life of the community, 

 it has been prominent in its literature, law and art as well as in the daily 

 occupations of ordinary men. Even at the present day if we look beyond 

 the narrow confines of our own country, where the overwhelming presence 

 of industry and commerce have to some extent blurred our sense of pro- 

 portion, to the wider world beyond, we find that the soil and its cultivation 

 is still the most important as well as the most fundamental of human 

 occupations and interests. Agriculture is still the ' Fair Queen of Arts, 

 from Heaven itself who came.' 



The soil is not an asset which is wasted by use, but wisely used, it 

 increases rather than diminishes in value. Coal and oil and the ores of 



