140 
Agriculture and the House of Russell. 
consumption of ditferent articles of food, which attracted great 
attention at the time, and which acquired still greater import- 
ance after the passing, in the same year, of the Agricultural 
Holdings Act of 1875, which provided for compensation to 
outgoing tenants for the unexhausted value of purchased food 
being subject to arbitration. The late Mr. Charles Randell was 
not satisfied with the results announced by Mr. Lawes, and on 
November 3, 1875, the Council, on his motion, carried a resolu- 
tion requesting the Chemical Committee to consider the propriety 
and the manner of instituting a series of experiments " by 
practical farmers in different districts " to ascertain the actual 
manurial value of the kinds of food most extensively pur- 
chased. 
At the instance of the Chemical Committee, this reference 
was extended by the Council on February 2, 1876, "so as to 
enable the Committee to obtain the opinion of practical and 
scientific witnesses as to how far the knowledge we already 
possess of the fertilising properties of manures and feeding 
stuQ's, especially the latter, can be relied upon as a basis of 
valuation to be made under the compensation clauses of the 
Agricultural Holdings Act." Thereupon the Chemical Com- 
mittee at once proceeded to take evidence, and the witnesses 
whom they examined on February 3, 4 and 28, included Mr. 
Lawes, Mr. E. P. Squarey, Mr. (now Sir) Jacob Wilson, Mr. 
Thomas Huskinson (then President of the Surveyors' Institu- 
tion), Mr. Benj. Bomford (a neighbour of Mv. Randells), 
Mr. Randell himself, Mr. James Martin, JMajor F. L. Dashwood, 
and Dr. Augustus Voelcker. 
The evidence taken by the Connnittee was subsequently 
published by the Society in a closely-printed octavo pamphlet 
of 132 pages, which contains a large amount of still interest- 
ing reading. The Duke of Bedford was a member of the 
Committee, and although there is no formal record of it at this 
stage, it is evident that he had made known his willingness to 
allow experiments of the kind contemplated to take place at 
Woburn. Mr. Lawes referred in his evidence (Q. 102) to a 
scheme whicli lie had drawn out for the Duke for ascertain- 
ing the manurial value of decorticated cotton-cake as against 
wheat; and the Chairman of the Committee, Mr. Wells, in 
reference to a suggestion by Mr. Squarey as to the inauguration 
by landowners of a series of experiments whicli would carry out 
and amplify the Rotliamsted experiments, said (Q. 335) : " We 
have had an offer from the Duke of Bedford ; and I think it is 
very likely that if an experiment is settled upon there would 
be an oHer of sometliiiig of the kind you speak of."' On Feb- 
