CONCLUSION. 
This concludes the records of the results of the Rothamsted soil 
investigations, which have been intrusted to me for presentation to 
you. That the duty has been but imperfectty fulfilled I am very 
sensible, and I have already pleaded in apology the great difficulty of 
dealing adequately with such abundant and suggestive material. 
With that apology I coupled an acknowledgment of the infinite pains 
spent by Sir Henry Gilbert in aiding and advising me in the prepara- 
tion of these lectures, and now, in closing them, I wisli once more to 
express my sense of his most valuable help; also I wish to tender to 
the many American friends and colleagues whom I have met at this 
gathering for the first time my cordial thanks for the most kind 
reception and the very patient hearing accorded to me as the repre- 
sentative, for the time being, of the Lawes Agricultural Trust Com- 
mittee, and also to express the hope that many of the friendships 
begun during this my first visit to America may happily last for many 
years to come, and may be refreshed from time to time hereafter by 
personal meetings on both sides of the Atlantic. 
POSTSCRIPT. 
In my opening lecture it was my painful task to refer to the then 
recent loss which scientific agriculture had sustained by the death of 
Sir John Lawes. I have now the sorrow — little more than a year 
afterwards — to refer to the death of his life-long colleague, the news 
of which will have been received with heartfelt grief by his manj^ 
friends in the American world of science. Sir Henry Gilbert died at 
Rothamsted on December 23, 1901, at the age of nearly 85 years. His 
association with Sir John Lawes dated from 1843, and had therefore 
lasted for nearly sixty years. It is unnecessary to add more in one 
way of memoir. His own record of his work to a recent period, pre- 
sented to America by himself, and the further record embodied in the 
foregoing pages, will be a sufficient memorial of him to those con- 
versant with the nature of the problems to which, in association with 
Sir John Lawes, lie devoted his life and his boundless energy. It is 
pleasant to be able to add that, although his health had gradually 
tailed during the year succeeding the loss of his old friend, he con- 
tinued to the last to take a keen interest in his work, and transacted 
business connected with it to within thirty-six hours of the end. His 
death leaves a conspicuous gap in the ranks of English chemists. 
180 

