THE LATE SIR JOHN LAWES.

Press, Issue LVII, 4 December 1900, Page 6

THE LATE SIR JOHN LAWES.

Noara Barron Agriccmxtust. By the death of Sir John Bennet Lawes a most prominent pioneer in agricultural science and practice has been called hence. It is not easy to accurately estimate the influence which the life-work of Sir John Lawes and his collaborateur. Sir Henry Gilbert, has had on the agricultural sciei.ee and practice of the country and of the world. The Rothamsted Experimental Station which Sir John founded in 1843. and which he, along with Sir Henry Gilbert, has conducted ever since, was the first experimental station of the kind in the country, and, with the exception of that founded in Alsace by Boussingault, it was also the earliest agricultural experimental station in the world. The long and unbroken continuity of the design and results of the Rothamsted Station was one of the great features which attracted the attention • of the world. The Rothamsted experiments furnished an incontestable demonstration of the fact that, by the judicious use of a well-balanced mixture of nitrogen, phosphates, and potash, it was possible to grow full crops of grain year after year on tbe same land without the application of any farmyard manure, and without tbe fertility of the soil being iv t;j£ slightest degree reduced. As a matter it fact, the grain crops grown for the last fifty-seven years on the experimental fields at Rothamsted, with- a cheap dressing of superphosphate, nitrogen, and potash, have been practically equal in quantity, 'and more than equal in quality, to the grain crops grown on the adjoining lands which had received an annual dresiug of 14 tons per acre of farmyard manure. The Rothamsted experimenters also accumulated a great mass of useful and important facts respecting the analyses of soils, feeding stuffs, and manurial residues, as well as iv respect to the loss of nitrates in drainage waters. By way of providing for the experimental station which he funded being maintained in efficient order as a scientific research station for all time to come, Sir John not only made over the land and laboratories at Rothamsted for that purpose, but he also set apart a sum of £100,000 as an endowment fund for the purposes of the station. It may be freely admitted, however, that Sir John Lawes, as a clear-headed business man had a business purpose to serve in founding ths Rothamsted Experimental Station. Long before that station was founded, Baron Liebig had discovered that bone phosphates, which were the only kind of phosphates then known, could be rendered readily available for plant use by being dissolved in sulphuric acid. That discovery did not, however, attract much attention at tbe time, as artificial manures were not largely used then, and the Peruvian guano which was then being imported was not only good, but very cheap and very effective as an all-round manure. At the time that Sir John Lawes commenced his experiments mineral phosphates f. r eie upon the market, and he applied Licbig's plan of dissolving them in sulphuric acid, with the result that he found the resultant superphosphate to be a very cheap and effective manure when buttressed on either side with nitrogen and potash. In IM2 he took out a patent for the manufacture of superphosphate, and in the following year he founded the eipeiimcntal station, at whicii the manurial value of superphosphate was so conclusively demon- | strated. His patent for the manufacture of superphosphate continue! in force till 1872, I and during the thirty years over which that patent extended th'; minufaetuie of superphosphate proved a source of enormous revenue to him, the price, as controlled by him, of that fertiliser being thea j about twice as high as it is now. But the purpose cf demonstrating the man until value of superphosphate had been accomplished long before the time at which he j made over the Rothamsted Station and its permanent fund of £ 100,000 to the nation, so that his munificence in this matter must bS attributed to his enthusiastic devotion to agricultural scientific research, coupled, I no doubt, with the very natural desire to erect an enduring monument to his memory. It may be freely admitted, also, that the principles underlying the Rothamsted experiments were in many respects defective and unsound. The results obtained in his continuous grain-growing experiments were obtained under conditions which were altogether foreign to the every-day practice of British farmers. The Rothamsted experimenters, also, were so bound by their, purely chemical ideas that for many long years* they scouted the very idea of bacterial activity in the soil having anything to do with the growth of plants. TKis, in fact, was the fundamental mistake which eventually caused these pioneers to lag behind in the march of progress in agricultural science. In regard to the fixation of free nitrogen, they demonstrated to their own satisfaction that leguminous crops, such as clovers, beans, peas, vetches etc.. could not draw upon the illimitable supplies of free nitrogen in the atmosphere, but required to have nitrogen supplied to them in tlie soil by means of farmyaid manure or artificials. Even as late as in 1881 they declared that the Rothamsted experiments had established beyond all cavil that practically the source of the whole nitrogen in our crops was the store of nitrogen within the soil itself and the nitrogenotre manuras brought upon it, and they further ventured to prophesy that the future progress of these experiments would affoid conclusive evidence on that point. But the everyday practice of farmers showed clearly enough that it was a waste of money to apply nitrogenous manures to leguminous crops, and ths researches of bacteriologists showed that the nodules on the roots of the leguminosas were the camping ground of myriads of bacteria which were able to fix the free nitrogen of the atmosphere and render it available for plant use. It was not, however, till within the last five or six years that the Rothamsted experimenters felt constrained to fall into line with science and practice, and they then owned that the experiments which had convinced them before on this point were altogether misleading and fallacious. Another essential error of omission which Sir John and Sir Henry continued up to the last lay in ignoring the functions of lime in the soil. Bacteriologists had shown that the nitrifying and nodule bacterid, as well as all the other advantageous soil organisms, could not properly discharge their functions without a due amount of carbonate of lime in the surface soil. The Rothamsted expsrimenters acknowledged the chemical form of the same fact by arguing that every crop removed a considerable quality of lime from the soil, and that there was also a steady leaching of lime from the surface soil to the subsoil and the drains by rains, so that the supplies of lime in the surface soil required to be regularly replenished by small dressings. But. notwithstanding these admissions on their part-, their continuous grain crop experiments have been conducted for fiftyseven years without any lime being applied to the soil other than the homoepathic dose applied in the 2 to 3 cwts. p.r acre of superphosphate. If a regular and proper dressing of lime had been applied to the Rothamsted Experimental Station, the leading results would undoubtedly have been very different from what they "have been.

In view of t>he above significant facts, it is not surprising that the value and interest of the Rothamsted experiment? should have been rather heavily discounted in recent years. Indeed, very little has been beard of them for the last few years, excepting tlirough their founders' annual letter, which he sent t» the Press, which only a few pap3ts *■>■'•>__._•«_. and only a few" readers read. s-n all is said and done, however, the outstanding fact remains that Sir John Bennet Lawes was the pioneer of agricultural scientific research in this country, and his example in founding the Rothamsted Experimental Station -stimulated the national agricultural societies and other public bodies to follow Ids lead. In this respect, therefore, his influence has been wholly for good, and his luemorv will ever be cherished by all who ever met the kindly old gentleman, who was at all times ready to show the visitor over the Rot__*_-_te. i__sp._r___M_.t_l StAt-aa,