244 The Glover Mystery. 



"So it has," I replied, "but it has been so from the nitrogen pro- 

 duced on the land with the aid of my farming system." It may be 

 observed that when the farmer buys nitrates, he only buys a chemical 

 agent, whereas when he grows plants which yield him nitrogen he 

 not only acquires plant food but a physical agent as well which 

 ploughs the land with its roots, ameliorates the whole condition 

 of the soil, and thus enables the plants successfully to contend with 

 the vicissitudes of our climate and the diseases to which all plants 

 are liable. 



From what I have previously said it might be supposed that I 

 think that the agricultural chemist is no longer needed. That is 

 far from my idea, but the chemist must become more of a farmer, 

 and the farmer more of a chemist before either can work effectively 

 in arresting the downward course of our British soils. For upwards 

 of 25 years I have now had them through my hands on a large scale, 

 from alluvial flats up to elevations of about 800 feet, and of almost 

 every kind. I have no reason to doubt that soils elsewhere are in 

 much the same condition, and if they are I am sure that, with the 

 present agricultural system, they must gradually be deteriorating, 

 and that the exhaustion of the soil, so universally complained of 

 by the farmer, must be more and more aggravated as time 

 advances ; the general conditions can only be improved by providing 

 the means for growing large and uniformly successful crops of 

 Clover, and if this can be done, as it has been by me on the stony, 

 steep, poor, and exhausted lands on the slopes of the Cheviots, it 

 could much more easily be done elsewhere. But an improved 

 farming system leading to this end can only be generally attained 

 within a reasonable period of time if the farmer is aided by the 

 following conditions. These are (i) the difiusion of practical 

 information on the subject by Government Experimental Stations, 

 (2) the provision of government seed testing stations, (3) obliging 

 seedsmen to pass an examination (just as druggists are) before 

 being allowed to practise their business, (4) the guaranteeing by 

 seedsmen of the rate of germination and purity of all seeds, 

 (S) that agricultural chemists should have had a practical agricul- 

 tural training before being allowed to practice, and (6) that the 

 present system of conducting manurial experiments should be 

 placed on a wider basis. To enlarge on all these points here would 

 be impossible, but numbers 2 and 6 are of such immediate 

 importance, and can be so readily taken up and acted on, that a 

 few sentences may be devoted to their consideration. As to point 2, 

 it may be briefly stated that with the exception of Great Britain all 

 the leading countries of Kurope have official seed-testing stations, 

 where the utmost facilities are given for the testing of agricultural 

 seeds. Even Ireland, thanks to the Hon. Sir Horace Plunkett, has 

 such a station in Dublin. Such stations were advised for Great 



