238 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



early in the present century and began to influence seriously our views on 

 soils. The work of Hilgard in particular introduced us to arid and alkaline 

 soils which, though they do not occur in Britain, are well known and of 

 great importance in India, Australia, South Africa and other parts of the 

 Empire, and we began, though only slowly, to take notice and to learn 

 something of what was going on in the United States. Russia, on the other 

 hand, is cut off from us by the barrier of a language which few can read, 

 and the still more remarkable soil work which was going on in Russia and 

 which has now produced such a great change and widening of the views of 

 soil investigators throughout the world, was unknown in this country 

 till after the great war when it began to filter through to us from America, 

 Germany and other countries. Works published in this country before 

 the war make no mention of the great Russian soil scientists such as 

 Dokuchaev, Glinka and Gedroiz. At the present day it would be im- 

 possible to write a book of any significance on soils without giving some 

 account of the work of these men and of the great effect it has had in 

 stimulating study and research on soils throughout the world. 



I suppose there is no better known agricultural manual in the English 

 language than ' Soil Conditions and Plant Growth,' by our former 

 President, Sir John Russell, the first edition of which was published in 

 19 1 2. A very valuable feature of this work, which has been continued and 

 improved in all subsequent editions, is the extensive bibliography which it 

 gives. In the first edition there are 323 entries in this bibliography but 

 not one of them refers to any of the leading Russian soil investigators. In' 

 the text no reference is made to the Russian system of classifying soils and 

 dividing them into zones according to the climate. There are, it is true, 

 one or two slight references to climate and its effect on the soil and on the 

 interpretation of soil analysis, but these are not developed or given more 

 than a passing notice. The same is true of the new edition published in 

 191 5 and it is not till the fourth edition, 1921, that references to the great 

 Russian workers begin to be made. The references to them are still 

 slight and their system is not described. In the fifth edition the references 

 to the Russian work are somewhat greater but even yet there is no detail, 

 and it is not till the sixth edition, 1932, that the Russians come into their 

 own and that a considerable amount of space is given to them and to a 

 description of their system of climatic classification. 



I have mentioned this particular text-book at some length because it is 

 an outstanding English text-book on soils and because it is in great demand 

 and has passed through a number of editions, so that we can trace in it the 

 gradual growth of recognition in this country of the Russian School and 

 its work. 



In this country we remained almost completely ignorant of the Russian 

 and of much other foreign work till after 1 920. The most important and 

 valuable agency in spreading among soil scientists of the world a know- 

 ledge of one another's work, and especially of the work of the Russians, 

 and thus widening the outlook of them all, is the International Society of 

 Soil Science. This Society was founded in Rome] in 1924. It grew out 

 of some previous International Conferences which had been held before 

 and after the great war. The first was held in Budapest in 1909 and was 



