12  Some  Secondary/  Actions  of  Manures  upon  the  Soil. 
have  been  published  by  the  Society.  Hitherto  unobserved 
maladies  affecting  mangolds  and  turnips  have  been  described 
and  figured.  These  and  many  other  investigations  have 
appeared  in  the  Journal  of  the  Society. 
Information  has  been  asked  for  and  supplied  to  the  follow- 
ing Government  institutions  : The  Royal  Agricultural  Society  of 
Germany,  the  Departments  of  Agriculture  of  the  United  States, 
of  the  Argentine  Republic,  and  of  the  Government  of  Brazil. 
And  at  home  continuous  help  has  been  given  to  H.M.  Office 
of  Works,  the  Irish  Land  Commission,  and  the  London  County 
Council’s  Asylums  Committee. 
The  work  of  these  years  has  often  been  tedious  and  trouble- 
some, but  throughout  it  all  I have  been  helped  and  encouraged 
by  the  Committee  whom  I served.  The  minute  organisms 
causing  injury  to  plants — bacteria  and  fungi — require  in  their 
investigation  sharp  and  clear  eyesight,  and  this  my  advancing 
years  have  seriously  affected.  I have  had  for  more  than  twenty 
years  able  assistants  in  my  laboratory,  without  whose  help 
I could  not  have  carried  on  my  work.  One  of  these  is  now 
Assistant  Director  of  Agriculture  to  the  Government  of 
Trinidad,  and  another  is  Botanist  to  the  Government  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture  in  Canada. 
It  is  a great  satisfaction  to  me  in  retiring  from  my  work 
that  the  practical  application  of  science  to  agriculture  has  been 
of  service  to  the  farmers  of  England,  and  that  work  begun  by 
the  Society  almost  forty  years  ago  is  now  being  carried  on  in 
various  laboratories  in  this  country,  among  which  the  new  One 
at  Cambridge  University,  where  the  Society’s  work  will  in 
future  be  done,  takes  a leading  place. 
William  Carruthbrs. 
SOME  SECONDARY  ACTIONS  OF 
MANURES  UPON  THE  SOIL. 
By  a.  D.  Hall,  M.A.,  F.R.S. 
Director  of  the  Rothamsted  Experimental  Station 
{Lawes  Agricultural  Trust). 
The  early  volumes  of  the  Journal  of  the  Royal  Agricultural 
Society  from  1840  to  about  1856  contain  a mass  of  good  writing 
which  provides  excellent  reading  even  to-day,  and  is  not  likely 
to  be  equalled  in  any  future  agricultural  publication.  Not 
only  was  farming  prosperous  at  that  time,  but  it  was  making 
improvements  and  breaking  fresh  ground  in  all  directions,  new 
information  was  being  acquired  on  both  the  scientific  and  the 
practical  side,  the  resources  of  science  and  mechanics  were 
