VOL. XXXVII. No. 52 I 
WHOLE No. 1509. I 
NEW YORK CITY, DEC, 28, 1878. 
PRICE FIVE CENTS. 
82.00 PER YEAR. 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, in tlie year 1878, by the Enral Publishing Company, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
J. B. LAWES. 
Fob nearly forty years the name of J. 
B. Lawes has been synonymous with progress 
in agricultural science and practice, the oiv- 
ilized world over, generally coupled with that 
of his able assistant Br. J. H. Gilbert. During 
this time many laborious students have given 
to the agricultural world muoh scientific infor¬ 
mation with regard to its own Rpecial avocations ; 
but the correctness of this information has been 
best tested and its value most accurately de¬ 
termined by the renowned experiments at 
Rothamsted. During this time, too, many 
practical agriculturists have contributed to the 
general fund of knowledge belonging to their 
class a multitude of lessons from their own ex¬ 
perience, but most of these lessons, also, have 
been either beneficially corrected or elucidated 
by the same series of experiments. It is doubt¬ 
ful whether within the last quarter of a cen¬ 
tury, a single standard work relating to agricul¬ 
ture has been published anywhere, in which 
references are not specifically made to these 
experiments ; and it is certain that in that time 
not only has no valuable work of the kind been 
published, but that no valuable number of an 
agricultural periodical has been issued which 
did not derive a fail share of its information 
either directly or indirectly from tuat source. 
While looal peculiarities of soil and olimate 
must always greatly influence the methods and 
results of intelligent agriculture, there are 
certain gonoral principles the judicious prac¬ 
tice of which will at all times go far towards de¬ 
ciding the measure of success that rewards the 
farmer’s labors. What these important principles 
are, and how they can best bo reduced to prac¬ 
tice, no ono, in any ago, has done more towards 
discovering with the certainty of a demonstra¬ 
tion than the gifted owner of Rothamsted. 
This uow famous place is a One entailed estate 
of over a thousand acres of very excellent land 
situated twenty-five miles from London, on the 
Midland Railway, near Harpenden Station 
in Hertfordshire. The house is approached 
through an extensive park ornamented with 
single specimens, clumps, and vistas of noble 
oaks, chestnuts and beeches. It is an old Eng¬ 
lish hattlemented mansion built of brick, in the 
Tndor style of architecture. The oldest part of 
it dates away back more than four hundred 
years to the troublous times of Edward IV. and 
Warwick, the King-maker; but extensive addi¬ 
tions in the same Btyle were made in the peace¬ 
ful reign of James I, and still more have been 
built in modern days. Beautiful lawns, fine 
conservatories, ancestral paintings; in a word, 
all its surroundings and accessories, internal 
and external, bespeak the excellent taste and 
ample fortune of its owner. 
Mr. Lawes inherited it in 1831, and although 
then only a trifle beyond his majority, he com¬ 
menced at once to experiment with different 
fertilizing materials, at first, however, merely 
in a small way with plants in pots. But it was 
notlong before his interest in his investigations 
and his far-sighted perception of the beneficial 
results that might be obtained from them if 
systematically conducted, led him to enlarge his 
operations and to transfer them from the green¬ 
house to the field. The first conception of the 
system which has since proved bo productive of 
good results, must have been original with him ; 
for not only had nothing of the kind been pre¬ 
viously practiced, but it could not have been 
suggested by the teachings of others, for it was 
begun before Liebig had promulgated the 
results of his studies in agricultural chemistry, 
and when, aside from the early labors of Davy, 
there were scarcely any researches in that line, 
except those of De S&ussnre. Neither were the 
operations undertaken with even a distant eye 
to profit, for the experimenter was already rich 
in material goods and youthful enthusiasm. It 
was pure love of research and of mankind that 
prompted him thus early to devote his keen 
intellect and abundant means to the benefioent 
project in the execution of which the same 
motive has elicited in the intervening years 
such marvelous foresight, judgment and per¬ 
sistence, despite the occasional discouragement 
inseparable from all semi-philanthropic under¬ 
takings. 
The problem he presented to himBelf at the 
outset, and to the solution of which he has de¬ 
voted a useful lifetime and an ample fortune, was 
to determine the actual relations of various crops 
with the soil in which they arc grown and with 
the fertilizers UBed to promote that growth, and 
to do this on so extensive a scale, both as regards 
area and time, as to settle upon a definito basis 
the fundamental principles of agricultural prac¬ 
tice. To elaborate the plan that would conduce 
best to this end was not the work of a day or a 
year; it required the labor and experienoe of 
nearly a decade before it assumed the systematic 
shape which it has since substantially retained. 
The nature of this, and the care with which all 
conceivable sources of error are eliminated from 
it, as far as human ingenuity can do bo, have been 
already sot forth in the Rdrals of October 13, 
1877 and July 27, 1878, and more briefly referred 
to in several other issues. It can hardly be said 
to date further back than 1843, when Dr. Gil¬ 
bert, a well known member of the leading scien¬ 
tific societies of the United Kingdom, was fortu¬ 
nately engaged by Mr. Lawes to take the di¬ 
rection of the laboratory department of his ex¬ 
perimental station, and so closely have the two 
been since associated that the name of one has 
almost become a complement to that of the 
other. Down to 1855 laboratory work was done 
in a large barn fitted up for the purpose; but 
during the winter of ’64-'5 a fine new laboratory 
was built by publio subscriptions among the 
farming community, and presented to Mr. Lawes 
as a grateful recognition of the great benefit his 
researches had conferred upon agriculture. Nor 
have the labors at Rothamsted been confined 
exclusively to the soil and its immediate pro¬ 
ducts ; for they also embrace a long series of 
experiments on stock management, conducted 
with the precision and completeness that dis¬ 
tinguish all the tests made there. 
Although bnt a small part of the results 
of these innumerable experiments has hither¬ 
to been published, yet that small part would 
make a good-sized library of entertaining and 
instructive reading, for both Messrs. Lawes 
and Gilbert, recognizing the fact that the 
world will be benefited by their labors just in 
proportion to the publicity given to the method 
of those labors and their results, in addition to 
giving to the pnblio several standard works on 
the subject, have been generous in their con¬ 
tributions to agricultural periodicals, eloquent 
in numerous addresses at publio meetings, and 
always courteous to the many visitors seeking 
information by inspecting the grounds to which 
their labors have given a world-wide celebrity. 
Moreover, after all these years of devotion to 
his cherished object, Mr. Lawes, feeling that he 
has only commenced a work which it will require 
many lives to complete, has lately set aside 
$500,000 and a certain area of land, to insure the 
continuance of these investigations when an hon¬ 
ored memory of him alone and the lasting re¬ 
sults of his labors shall remain among the living. 
The use of superphosphate of lime found 
favor at Rothamsted early after Liebig's sug¬ 
gestion with regard to its manufacture and ad¬ 
vantages, and a little later, when the disoovery 
of vast deposits of mineral phosphates opened 
to the agriculturist a prospect of undreamt 
of sources of wealth, Mr. Lawes was among the 
first to utilize the discovery. In order to insure 
the purity on his own land of what are now 
known as commercial fertilizers, and to demon¬ 
strate their utility, he began their manufacture 
many years ago and successfully prosecuted the 
industry on a very large scale until the present 
year, when he sold out the business to a oojmpany 
with a capital of about $3,000,000. At all times 
he has been a zealous, out-spoken advocate for 
the amelioration of the condition of tenant 
farmers and of agricultural laborers, and has 
set an example to other landlords by his. con¬ 
siderate treatment of his own tenants and by 
his effectual efforts to improve the lot and dis¬ 
pel the ignorance of his hired hands. 
It may well cause surprise that in a country in 
which titles are nominally bestowed as rewards 
for signal merit, this man, whose long labors 
have done so muoh for the individual and nation¬ 
al prosperity, not only of his own countrymen 
but also of the dwellers in all civilized lands, 
shonld still remain untitled; bnt satisfaction 
will succeed surprise on reflecting that in bygone 
days British titles crowned vice as often as they 
honored virtue or meritorious services, and that 
even to-day they are reserved almost exclusively 
to requite the soldier’s murderous skill or chance 
good fortune, the lawyer’s crafty pleadings, the 
politician’s plausible trickery or the civil func¬ 
tionary’s accidental prominence. 
The accompanying likeness of Mr. Lawes is 
taken from a photograph which at our solicita¬ 
tion he lately sent to us. Without consulting 
his wishes in the matter, we have ventured to 
thus use his gift in order to please onr readers 
with the portrait of one whom, having done so 
muoh for agriculture, all agricnlturits should 
delight to honor. So far as our remembrance 
and inquiries go, it is the first likeness of him 
ever placed before the American public, and 
will be specially interesting to onr readers who 
have already made his acquaintance through his 
valuable contributions to these columns. 
4farm Cujics, 
IMPROVED FARMING. 
Hon. Thomas P. Janes, Commissioner of 
Agriculture for the State of Georgia, speaks in 
his Fifth Annual Report, as follows: •' Success¬ 
ful agriculture secures a liberal annual profit 
upon the capital invested in land, appliances and 
labor, aud at the same time increases the fer¬ 
tility, or producing capacity, of the soil.” Ad¬ 
mitting the correctness of thiB proposition, and 
judging from the condition of many farms in 
the past, the presumption would be that our 
forefathers were not all successful agriculturists, 
for the reason that in many instances there is 
an evidence of deterioration of the soil, which, 
in Borne oases, has amounted almost to barren¬ 
ness. This Mr. Janes describes as follows: 
“Wasteful agriculture, such as was practiced 
in the early history of every country, may se¬ 
cure annual profits, but is often accompanied 
by a diminution in the fertility of the soil, and 
hence a reduction in the value of the capital in¬ 
vested.” Here is where many farmers commit 
an error: because they are, for the time being, 
reaping a profit from the cultivation of the soil, 
they do not consider that the course which they 
are pursuing is working a secret injury to the 
soil, which more than balances the temporary 
profits obtained. 
It therefore becomes necessary to resort to a 
system described as “ Recuperative Agriculture, 
which, under the infiueuce of science and skill, 
buildB up the waste of the previous‘system, and 
results in successful agriculture.” 
Wasteful agriculture may result from dif¬ 
ferent causes; cropping a soil without returning 
to it fertilizing materials to replace' those taken 
from it, causes waste; so, too, cropping a 
greater surface than the amount of fertilizing 
substances applied will supply with what has 
been taken by the crop, will produce a like re¬ 
sult, only less in extent. It is a damaging sys¬ 
tem of agriculture that draws from the soil a 
greater amount of fertility than is supplied to 
it, and it is all the more dangerous because its 
evil results are so gradual iu their appearance 
that they are hardly notioeable as the years go 
by until the land is impoverished ; and yet this 
is just what has been going on all over the 
country, and in & multitude of cases is still being 
done. But fortunately for the future prosperity 
of agriculture, farmers are beooming better 
educated, aud the practice of many of them is 
so changed ?a to make it worthy of being classed 
as “recuperative agriculture.'' This is beiDg 
effected in two ways; first, the acreage brought 
under cultivation is so reduced as to make it 
J. B. LAWES. (From a photograph.) 
