Required on Experimental Farms. 123 



that every experimental farm should be divided into 

 two compartments — the one consisting of exhausted 

 British soil, like that of Cockle Park, and the other 

 of soil brought into a good state of fertility by 

 natural agencies. It could then be ascertained whether 

 it would pay the farmer best to carry on his 

 exhausted soil on the present system, and aided by 

 artificial manures, or whether it would pay better to 

 alter the farming system in the direction of that adopted 

 by me, and reduce his artificial bill to a low ebb, 

 or perhaps abolish it altogethei-, as I have this year done 

 with one of my turnip crops. It seems obvious that 

 if agricultural experiments such as I suggest are to be 

 carried out, the present plan of employing what are 

 called agricultural chemists must be abandoned. What 

 we require are practical farmei's who have acquired that 

 very moderate amount of chemical knowledge which 

 constitutes the whole outfit of the existing so-called 

 agricultural chemists, and which is all that is necessary 

 on experimental farms of the kind I have suggested. 

 Any iuteUigent farmer who has been farming on his own 

 account for, say, about ten years, and of about 35 years 

 of age, could learn the necessary amount of chemistry 

 in six months, and the farms would then have agricul- 

 tural chemists with a thorough practical knowledge of 

 agriculture, instead of, as at present, chemists who have 

 either none, or the merest smattering of it. It must 

 be considered further — and this is a most important 

 point — that farmers would be encouraged to visit such 

 farms, and would thoroughly rely on what they saw 

 there, were the operations conducted by a practical 

 farmer. 



I think it advisable, in conclusion, to give my reason 

 for asking the Government to take a lease of my Clifton- 

 ou-Bowmont farm. It was partly to save time, and 

 partly because of the poorness of the land, its originally- 

 exhausted condition, and the nature of the climate, 

 which is both very dry, cold, and much exposed to 



