230 
THE BOOK OF THE ROTHAMSTED 
EXPERIMENTS . 1 
Mr. A. D. Hall, the present Director of the Rothamsted 
Experimental Station, has rendered good service to agri- 
culturists by this account in popular language of the origin, 
results, and present work of the famous Rothamsted Experi- 
ments, commenced by the late Sir John Lawes and Sir Henry 
Gilbert in 1843, and carried on continuously ever since. No 
intelligent farmer, and, indeed, no one interested in the 
cultivation of the soil, can afford to neglect the numerous lessons 
which these experiments convey, and the book under review 
should find place as an important work of reference on every 
agricultural bookshelf. 
The writer in his preface thus describes the object of the 
experiments : — 
The great object, then, of the Rothamsted Experiments is to obtain 
knowledge that is true everywhere, and to arrive at principles of general 
application, leaving the farmer himself, through his more immediate advisers, 
to adapt these principles to his own practical conditions and translate them 
into pounds, shillings, and pence. Thus the farmer who visits Rothamsted 
must not expect to see demonstrations of the most profitable means of growing 
this or that crop, but rather to obtain information as to its habits and require- 
ments which on reflection he can make useful under his own conditions. 
Some of the work also that is going on may seem to deal with problems little 
connected with practice : so remote, in fact, that they never can have any 
bearing upon the business of farming. There are, however, many matters in 
which the actual farmer will always have to rely upon the advice of scientific 
experts, and as a rule the unpractical-looking experiments are devised to settle 
this or that point on which the scientific man must have information in order 
to form a correct judgment for the guidance of the practical man. 
The book is divided into thirteen chapters. The first three 
may be regarded as more or less introductory, dealing as they 
do with the sources of nitrogen, meteorology, and the nature of 
the Rothamsted soil. Chapters IV. to VI. describe the con- 
tinuous experiments with wheat, barley, and oats ; Chapter VII. 
the experiments with root crops ; Chapter VIII. the leguminous 
crops ; Chapter IX. the experiments on grass land mown for 
hay ; Chapter X. the rotation experiments. Chapter XI. dis- 
cusses the experiments in their bearing upon the subjects of 
nitrification and the composition of drainage waters ; and the 
two remaining chapters deal respectively with feeding 
experiments on animals and with various other inquiries 
1 The Booh of the Rothamsted Experiments. By A. D. Hall, M.A. (Oxon.), 
Director of the Rothamsted Experimental Station, First Principal of the South 
Eastern Agricultural College. Issued with the authority of the Lawes 
Agricultural Trust Committee. London : John Murray, Albemarle Street, W., 
1905. Large 8vo, pp. i.-xl. ; 1-294. 
