1921.] 



Agricultural Research as a Career 



497 



AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH AS A 

 CAREER. 



The progress of agricultural science has in the past been 

 hampered by the poor material prospects which agricultural 

 research work has offered to the scientific worker. To attract 

 and retain talented workers in this sphere the ^iinistry has 

 instituted a scheme which affords a definite career to the men 

 and women engaged at the Agricultural Research Institutes in 

 England and Wales. Before proceeding to describe the scheme, 

 however, it may be explained that these institutes are for the 

 most part attached to a university or university college, the 

 notable exception being the Rothamsted Experimental Station at 

 Harpenden, which is at the same time the oldest and one of the 

 largest and most important. Each institute devotes itself to a 

 particular branch of agricultural science, as for example, plant 

 nutrition and plant pathology at Rothamsted, plant breeding and 

 r.nimal nutrition at Cambridge, agricultural economics at Oxford, 

 fruit culture at Long Ashton and East Mailing. The members 

 of the scientific staff are recruited principally from young 

 graduates who have taken honours in natural science and who 

 have since specialised in some branch of science with an agricul- 

 tural bearing, frequently with the aid of a research scholarship 

 granted by the Ministry. 



Each institute is independent and self-governing, but certain 

 grades of staff have been established common to all, and it is 

 expected that there will be promotion, not only within institutes, 

 but from one institute to another concerned with similar 

 branches of science. At each institute there is a Director who 

 receives a personal salary ; below the grade of Director there are 

 Principal Assistants with a salary of £600 rising by annual 

 increments to £800 a year; Senior Assistants with a salary of 

 £400 rising to ^600 ; Assistants with a salary of .£300 rising to 

 i:360; and temporary Junior Assistants with salaries varying 

 according to their duties and the cost of living. A bonus, the 

 amount of which is subject to revision from time to time as the 

 cost of living falls, is at present paid to Assistants, Senior Assis- 

 tants and Principal Assistants. At the moment of writing the 

 bonus is ;£150 on salaries of £400 and under, and 15 per cent, 

 on amounts over that sum ; a reduction will, however, shortly 

 be made in these rates. 



The tenure of the posts of Principal and Senior Assistants may 

 be regarded as possessing much the same measure of permanence 



n 



