ROTHAMSTED STATION

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 105, 27 January 1939, Page 11

ROTHAMSTED STATION

Address At Conference Of Institute Of Chemistry

Ait informative account of the work of Rothamsted Experimental Station. England, was given by Mr. G. W. Lawrence in his presidential address to the annual conference of the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry held at Massey Agricultural College, Palmerston North, yesterday. Mr. Lawrence described the work of Sir John Bennet Lawes, who founded the station and said that if Lawes had done nothing else for agriculture than to introduce superphosphate his name would have gone down in history. ‘•Lawes must have been well acquainted with the continental work on agricultural problems for he carried out experiments with the products formed by the action of sulphuric acid on bones,” said Mr. Lawrence. “Later he conceived the idea of treating the mineral phosphate or apalite with sulphuric acid, for which process he subsequently took out a patent for the manufacture of superphosphate. He extracted a huge fortune from the manufacture of this fertilizer and other allied chemical substances, but gave much of it back to the world in the conduct of his extensive experiments in Rothamsted.”