THE MAN OF SCIENCE AND THE MAN ON THE LAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 2902, 27 October 1909, Page 7

THE MAN OF SCIENCE AND THE MAN ON THE LAND.

1 i NEW WORK AT THE OLDEST j AORiCULTTJUAL EXPERIMENT STATION IN THE WORLD. 1 By '"' Home Counties," in the World's \ ' Work. ! i The other day I heard an American j agricultural authority, Mr Henry Wallace, t I editor of Wallace's Farmer, deploring the ! way in which, as exhibited in the data I ! of Mr Roosevelt's Country Life Comnus- ' sion, of which he was a member, a vast number of the farmers of the United States ] have besn robbing the coil of their country ,of its fertility. Although the figures are 1 not in all respects fairly comparable, it 1 is certainly an imprfissive fact that, the j yield of wl-eat in America averages only ■ i 14 bushels an acre to the 33 bushels of . I yield in the United Kingdom. ! In the United States, ae> we all know, ] some of th-j most enlightened and most , 1 successful farming in tho world is to bo 1 seen. America is also tho country of j agricultural newspapers, and \ery many fdimers take in two cr three or moie. ! But when all the agricultural colleges on , I the othe» side, ano its mar\elloasly up-to- [ date and costly Agricult iral Department , at Washington, and some dozens of faim- , ing editors, have done their very best, I tho fact cannot be obseuivd that the pre- ! dictiDn of wheat in tho States is only . ! about the world's average, an avera^o 1 pulled down by such a figure as the ninebushels an acre of India. " Among us the possession of a manure- , spieader is counted as an articlo of communion in Iho church of gcod farming." I remember Mr Wallace say in',- It 1^ , asferted .har by sprea ling lna'iuie by machine -nstead of by hand 30 per cent, better results are got But there aio many Amei icari tarr.ier-s w!;o apply th^it farm- ' yard or, -c; they cal! it. barnyard manure neither by ma"hine nor by hand. Thero are evjn thos who are said to ha\e mo\ed tiiPi:- b.Tiia in oi(i?r to £>et av\ay fiom the-ii- r.:.ir:u:o hcaj s ! Inched Mr Wallace ha? a s.tor;> — it, mint be trti", for . he is a preacher as well as an editor and a farmer — that he once bought a faun, ' and that, after th~ far'n hand on tho place had been carting- away the rnamuo from the *ido of tho barn for a fortnight, they got down to certain wooden post;-. Tho=e, Mr Wallace was a=s t iied on inquiry, le.n-esentsd tlie top of a:i earlier 1 barn ! ! L— HALF A CENTURY OF 'ARTIj FICIALS" 1 —And the Outlook for the Xoxt Half1 Century. — I All this :6 no unsuitable introduction to some notes on a few of th-a things which are being done in this country to "promote economical farming. 1 had my few words . of conversation with Mr Wal'ane while • visiting- once .-gain our first and still lead- ' ing agricultural experiment station at ' Rothamsted Mr A. D. Hall, its director, 1 has bcsi made- a Fellow of the Royal j Society since I was there ket, and the honour is an acknowledgment of the good work being done under the ausuices of j tho Lanes" Trust and of ths stimulating 1 influence exerted by tho place on t'^e present, as on tne past, generation of our agriculturists.. , Tha famous station has been at work throughout almost the whole period during 1 which " artificials " have been in use. ! TII2 treatment which its various experimental plots are receiving has been given net for a few years as at tho testing I grounds of our agricultural colleges and , tho agrlcult iral colleges of other nations. j but for more than 60 years. Of the soil , at Rothamstcd more ie known than of any soil in the world. I for the discovery and introduction of aitificial fertilisers and feeding stuffs— nitrate cf soda, guano, the phosphates, cotton cake, maize, etc.— our *armeis have been enabled, as Mr Hall says, to raiM?- ' tliPir output per acre '' ,it luaat 50 per ' cent, during the reign of tne late Queen." What of the future? It is to tho futuro ; that the Director of Rotl.amstcd addresses 1 I'uns-flf Jn his new and most serviceable book, "Fertiliser-, and Manures,"' (Miu-rajJ. It is th? eecoi-d of a .srrie--, tLc- lir.vt ~of which is Butitled '• The Soil"; tho third I is to be devoted to tho chemistij of the I siow-inpr plant. M r Hall sees that we are !' -teadilj recovering" fiom the pc.s>;i< -1 brought about by the continued opening up of new areas of virgin soil and by the ("all in freights. wh ; ch hj.s biou»ht to tlii country corn and meal below oar >-.ii"non i^ricp- of produeti'-n. "The _ s,upi)ly ot n ,1 virgin sail," ho , <-a\«. ' is not without limit, nor are its inch.** inexhajsrible; the co-t of [irodac- | t'<.n l;r.s bosun to li^e in the now couuI tries- already ye <-oe t!>" Amcucin farm, r in Jus turn being compel kd to ic-.sou to fo-tili-jss; and v ith • adx lise j.-i pr.te, thj i.-ite.i-jn 3 farmer tail rerouu huii-^-lf for an increased outlay. Tho futuro, too, iieo with intensive faiming o\<iv veai liv ratio of the cultivable land to "the population of th~ world shrinks, -i. ,■.-_, year sr-ience puti fresh lesouicos in the hands of ihr> farmiM." "In tin L'nircd Kingdom for some unie," Mr Hall adi:-:ts, "the sti~ain luaj st'.H iun baekv..mls and the m.jio r-\wrifc:M> forms of aiabie cultivation continue to be ic;>liu"d by grasfe. whirl- d^>naii'\ no ouf!j> .Still, in tie end, whatever ai-ri-culiuio --urvi\os in this coui.try will bo foiced into moj-e and more" iiit«ii-,i\ o method- by the incieasing scaicity of the land. As_it_i!> the si,ec-iulist farmei-a in Cheat Biiiain -the {Ctato-uionci;, the market gardening, tho hoij-gmw ers - liav<leached a pitch of cultivation which io hardly to bo paralleled elsewhere."' Vide Mr Pratt's " Trar sition in Agriculture; " passim. — How Help Can and Cannot be Given. — Intensive farming means no- only fertilisers of all sorts, but skill and knowledge in the use of them. The days of easy applications of dung and dung only 'iaVt gono "for good,' if enly because, on most fai ins there "is never enough of it to go' round, and motors are yearly making it' dearer and "dearer to buy. The ek'll and knowledge come only bjhard work, the hard work of study, observation, reflection, and practice. In the time" of Sir J. B. Lawes one of a party of farmers at Rothamsted aaked for a prac'i^al hint as to success in his farming, and

received the unexpected advice. " Get up early." To thi6 day the question is frequently askei at Rothamsted: Which is the best, that is the cheapest, method of growing such and such a crop? And needless to say, no reply is forthcoming. "In practical farming,'' as Mr Hall says, " there can be no ' best way of doing things; the mere fact that the weather of the coming season is unknown maiv'js it impossible to specify the absolutely righl course eithe r in cultivation ir in manuring. The question even of the best manure for a given crop is complicated by the manner in which every farm differs somewhat from every olher, not merely in its soil and climate, for theee matter less than is commonly suppose J. but in its object and management. One man aims at crops, another man gets 1 his nion33 - back by his stock ; one man. has only to ray 15s an acre rent, another has to get twico as much out of his land before be touches a profit; one man's markets tre euch that ho can repay himself for an outlay of £3 an aero for fertilisers on his root rica, whereas another man could not afford 20s ; no one recipe can be handed out to suit all these men."' In short, tho object of tho sci-entiiic man is to lay down general principles for tho practic.il man to apply to his own conditions. It is -an achievement of the scientific ina:i. for instance, to have dsinonstrated that in=;tea I of ■. \e rail bringing" down from 301b to 401b of nitrogen on e\ ?ry aero of land in tho 12 months, as originally supposed, only 51b or 41b are thus collected, li is interesting-, indeed, to st:>nd sit Rothani >ted beside the great concrete t.inks of soil si t which ths fact has been demonstrated. By tho way, the middle one of three is no lonui- 1 .- covered with moss. This seems to be due to the fact that, incidental to a soil experiment, the earth of this ;>!ot or gauge was sprinkled with sugar. But why «liDu!d sug-j!- induco oo:id'.ion= destructive to tho growth of ma-? Whalevei tho yn^VL-r is wo ha\o one more interesting subject of inquiry accidentally opened up. —The Whole Problem of Manuring.— Tt has be°n noted that moie is known of the soil of Rothamstoi 1 than any other l.m d in tho world. An ac:e <■■{ it hr.s been found to weigh, if a depth *of 9in bo hik-m, a litde mora thn-i 2.500,0001b. Some 25O'"!lli of it are proved on anahvs to con'-.i.st of nitro>en, 27501b of phosphoric acid. and'67soib of not;i«h. A'ow .vres of rlu follortin^ crops (a\ o:\ine aT'Ouiits aru stated after tLo naires of each) take out of the soil no nio'-o thaii tho .-unoants of nitrogen, phcsphoiiu acid, and potash "shown :—: —

Yet though the sod undoubtedly contains enough p]ani food for a hundred full c;ops, .is Mr Hall says, " without fresh additions _ of plant, food as manure tho production will shrink in. a very few jeaia to one-third or oiis-tourth q£ the aveiage full crop."' At this level (ho yield will ordinarily stay for long enough On thai wonderful plot at RothLnif.ed, wLrch ha> giown wheat for 65 seasons without a fc-jjij at manure, 'here has ijo.m. no appiee.ub'e drop ;n; n the yield since the first fo~,v \eav- . ' Tho yiclJ is about 12£ .bushels per aero ' for each successive 10 years' average — or j about a third of that obtained from plots ' yvhich are manured. The moral of ail thir. ] is, of course, simply that it is not enough j for plant food to exist in the soil and to ! be soluble in the acid of the analyst who examines jt. It muec bo in an available, not, r locked-un or cL.rniaiil condition. Briefly, as we learn in the botany printers^ I the soil can us-aally be doi>ended upon to provide in an acceptable form Calcium, I. on, Chlorine, Magnesium, Sulphur, Silicon, but ordinarily the supply of Nitrooex, i Piio.-i'iior.Ci,. and Potassium must !-.. ' supplemented. The whole science o: iiij-nuriri^t. is (o provide plants with compounds of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and ! potash, singly or together. Old Jethro Tull believed that manures wete unnec.3, •,;.!>; .ha> if iho <-oil woo' only suffi-.-ntly stirred plants wo'il.! be able U- -4ct for themselves Jl tho su f - t-.-nanoo they want?d The theory is a I'imncW cf the fact that v.hen Defo.\rule •' Tli-» land which I had manured," , he meant the land which Kobins-un Crusoe 11^'J dug-. Tull, a.s must b- adiriticd when ' the m<-ihods of the be-t -r irdcners ar- ' carefjlly watched, had a fc ood deal to say j for hini-.lf In th- case cf the soil, as , 111 rhera^o of a liuma-i beinir, '-taking ili'i-u'-. ,* no substitute for exerc->e and a he-li'iy life. Hut it w nt.no iho 1»m tjuo that fr-rtili-ers are a riecv-hiiv to tl-> K nner and gardener, for are not cultivatf.rs en^ag-rd not only in gluing plants <;f n kind j liat man, not Nature, ha', i\<ji\ed, atij in condition.', of man's, not ' Virtues providing, but with a \ lev. to neHs th.it Xatuiv would never dream of \ Lfoin^- 111 for en her own atndmf' It is ( jv 3b bushel-; an uao not 22^ K,u*iieK an 1 ici« croo, of wheat that t!io' f armur "jets ' lib Jjmiii:. — T-io Thing--, Dead and Ah\o That i ki~\p - j Whit a w.nd-v .story the =tory of ■ irtilicid fjrtili^-r-, really i-,. Of cotirio, ' » Mr Hall's reading m old farm-ng»bnoks I h^\.s, .soot, liom shavings, woollen rmll ! efi.se .nd so forth have been used for scntunes. Nitrate of sodd and iaiio irst arrived in this count iv about the ime Queen Victoria came to the throne. \ ith the introduction of coal-gas a cheap ource of ammonia^l <=alts was opened up. lincral phosphates date back to Lawes'e atcits in 1342. The discovery of the opiohto beds of Cambridgeshire took place years later. (Coprolites are not, howver, as the author of " Ercwhon " thought assihsed dung.) The development of the otash deposits of Stassfurt began in 1860. 'he black basic s lag came into the mar- I et in 1879, and to-day Great Britain I vports to Germany 150,000 tons in 0. j ear. | An immense source- of nitrogen became eanitelj known whan two Germans delODstrated how atmospheric nitrogen is xed by bacteria Hvintr in <vmh.i,iU

) ' witli leguminous plants At Rothainstu'l - j one may se-3 a plot on which tha wheat 3 ' is 23 per cent, better because the ground E j on which it is "grown has previously borno - clo\er. The year after the wheat, whoa roots are taken, and the year after that, I when barley comes into the^ rotation, the f benefit due 10 the clover i 6 still evident. 1 Alas, when the farmer tries to grow l clover too frequently on the same ground, - j clover sickness appears. Some of these 1 days, to the n» small advantage of agri- : culture, the causes to which this ailment ■ is due will be laid bare. Then in the means of providing, nitro- , gen account must be taken of ' our old • friend azotobaeter, to whom* and his allies • it is extremely probable, as Mr Hail in-. . sists, that we owe the rich soil of Mani- ; toba and of the Russian steppes.. As l much as 401b of nitrogen are believed to • have boon fixed in a >ear at Kothamsted 1 in that curious vjuarter acre nlci which ; j for half a century has been* allowed to roverr, to prairie conditions. "Doubtless," Mr Hall says. "the. useful soil-bacteria will bo domescicatod,- im- • proved, and mada more effective, just as I our Hocks and herds have been formed .' and developed, while the useless ones will , I be stamped cut as vermin." * I —At Twenty Times the Heat of Boilj ing Water. — '■ > [ j Finally, js a means of supplying' < 'that , nitrogen w hich has a moro direct' and ! immediate eft'eot tinon the plant than any other fertiliser — and also costs the farmer , more ne • Ib than any other — we have the ! rc"^nt ottemp:s. now successful on com1 'iiercial lim?.-, to br.n» free v itrogen-gas j into combination. The only drawhapff to j calcium cyanide — it contains 20 per "cent, of nitrogen — v as its extreme fineness, bub this lias been overcome. Calcium nitrate, J made by the agency of an arc flame at no : loss rhan ?600 des~ccs Centigrade— curiously I enough, not beiajA jiirticularly luminous, i it can bo lookod a\, dir?ctly from a yard 1 a-.vay — contain.! about 13 per cent. oF ! ivripatM. Ths X::t£ara installation ran ] for littlo mo:c than a year, but the Noi tockbn factory wi!l soon be equal to the ' product '0.1 of 3000 tons a mouth. i Tho ]iodi"-t c-sts about eitrht guineas 1 a lei dcl:» - ei.»d in England, tiga-inst the ! £10 a ton paid foi tho nitrate which we j.liav.3 q3ji u'.'WMig on since, about th ! time O.ic-vvui won\j round the -.vorld in ' the Eeaaie. Of the Chilian nitrite of 1 which perhaps a million tons are pro1 durod 111 .' year, G-ermany takes about a I thlid. o/ul 'li-eafc Britain arsd Bel*?iuj'i a twelfth each- O c tho chief rival of nitrat? at tho nre-ent time, ?uiphato ot amn 0:11 a. 200.000 tons aie produced, in this .•ou'if.' 1 ' iii 12 months. ■inioMj;- Im,) ,','j«frs thc-re s no ' moro f;ivon-ite ii.v i .;i:'» thai; shoddy, a toh- or 1 t>vr bei:is req-.ird^d as as useful as 20 ! tons- of farmyard manure. Seaweed ■ again, in a wet condition, is also aVgocd • -is farmyaic' manure. If n>'.'st c6r't^inly j surj-.risj many people to learn that '* ift" ; spite of th° discovery of basic slag and 1 t.0." cheapening- of mineral pno^>har»3, ■some 100,000 tons of bones are still yeai'ly utilised for the fields cf the _ Wriited j Kingdom What all those bon&s ire.'' is j not know n precisely, but tho day* has certainly gone past when agricultural ; Englrnd could be accused, as " " I • tobi'tr J accut=.--d her, of robbing '' the battlSfiolds of Leimic, Waterloo, and the Crimea/ < Bui the subject of manures, unpromising though it may seem at firs^ .sight,

is of very real interest, and mi^ht be gossiped over fou^ pages. Does not Mr Hall in his' book devote 20 at least to the consideration of the farmyard sort? — an interesting fact, indeed, for the novice in agricultm c, for whom a dung-heap in in agriculture, to whom c dung-heap in to him and it is nothing more, The cost of manufacturing this • particular commodity,' Mr- Hall finds, is from 7s to 12s a ton; • We hava' seen, however; that in rural England we have travelled far from the etsge— it lasted well into tho ninetesiit'i cemuiry^at which " the black and the white," that is dung and lime, were +ho only manures U6ed by the great mass of farmers. "When the land is in ?ood condition," Mr Hall concludes, " most of our farms require a ; special rather than a general manuring'? the plant, owing- to some • peculiarity in its habit of growth, finds -a particular difficulty to obtain one of the constituents ■of its nutriment from the soil; if that weak spot is repaired by the manure employed, the soil will furnish the other essentials for growth." An example is to be found in wheat and barley. Though similar in general character, they demand entirely distinct treatment. " Under ordinary farming conditions, wheat requires aotive nitrogenous manure and lihtle el-e; barley requires comparatively little nitroeren, but is very responsive to a supply of phosphates." II.— FIFTY YEARS' WORK IN THE OPEN, — And the Lessens of an Artificial Jungle.And so we get back again to the Rothatnsted exr>< riments. As one walks round the historic fields — are not Broadbalk, Agdell, and Hoos known in whatever part of the world agricultural science is studied? — to the park, where the conditions of successful grass growing have been tested so long, something is realised of the indebtedness of the painstaking agricilturist to the place which has been in existence so long that it was once described by Dickens. On these mown grass plots the eye takes in at once how, in one experiment, different manuring has stimulated tho deep-rooting and in another the ehallowrooting plants. In on 3 plot the result of the manuriaJ treatment continued for half a ceniary has been to allow of weeds crowding the grass into 'half the available spice In another there is reason to believe that the state of things has become co bad that soil-bacteria have wholly departed, their pla-ce being taken by fnn«roid growths. On this sour piece cf ground, where there a-e now places entirely bare of vegetation of any sort, will heath sr spring up cne day? Mr Hall wonders. An outstanding lesson of Rothamsted is undoubtedly that no cultivated plant can survive the competition of weeds. On the plot en which a crop of wheat was left standing 40 years ago every sign of wheat had disappeared in three yeais, and now there is to be" seen the most perfect imitation of jungle on a, small scale to be observed in England. From the vigorous life exhibited by the weeds we may Tealiae something of the advantage ob taired in growing cultivated plants by using varieties which B re the pioducte of the healthiest stocks only. III.— SOIL ANALYSIS BY SIEVES, —And What May Come of it.— Rothamsted is famous not only for its experimental plots but for its searching analyses. The serried rows of bottlee which appalled " JJoz "—are they not numerous enough to have necessitated the erection of a special building fur their accomuf; dation ? — have considerably - increased in number since the time of the editor of All the Year Round But just as it has been discovered that to lay bare the chemical constituente of a soU is of little value if their degiee of availability to p.ant-life is not known, "'and that there is in the soil a biological as well as a chemical problem, a problem of life as •.tell as of inanimate things, bo has it bc-en :-ee:» that a mechanical as well as a chemical analysis of aoil is wanted. "•Vlien a chemical analysis of a soil is liiiL-ie more than three quarters of the usaiorial is not analysed at all- Tt is left iii. dealt with as "' undisaohcJ silir-eous matter." In making a mechanical intrcv.l of n uhaiv.Vil anaKeis, tho instruments of the anahst are not test-tubes hut sieves or I hair equivalents Soils are divided into seven clasps: — (I) Material above -£in diameter is called stores .and tjrs.vel, and is not reckoned in the analyses.

(7) Particle's less than r^^ in = clay. Mr Hall and his colleagues at Rothamsted have recently carr-ed out a remarkable eories of mechanical analysis of wheat, barley, potato, fruit, a:id lion soils. There is no need to include any of his tabular results in an a-ticle in a non-Taohnifiil magazine; it may sirimlj. be recorded that they exhibit to experts a remarkable body of evidence aa to what constitutes good soil-, for the crops specified. •' Meohii" ral anahsi-;," Mr Hall points cut. '"provides u^ with information about what is the biggest factor in the productivity of the soil and its adaptability to \>artic.ijar crops It enables us to predicf beforehand of a ghen soil whether or not it would be suitable for some new crop , it renders more- exact the iuiirmonr of the skilled practical Iran on handling thp soil, and in coiw ca-'-cs re\ea's pcuharit.os that would escana tho practical man until he bppan to have mora extended experience of the soil in question." Hut v cbonica! anahsi=> of the soil must go hand in hand with mechanical analyse. " Sucl' matters as the amount of carbonate of lime and other constituents determined by chemical analysis also come into play, sometimes, and \even the moehanieiai? analysis has to be' considered in the Hjrnt of " the elevation and the rainfall. Many gor.J soils remain in woodland l<ecausf> thair elevation makes trvn wet and cold; and soils which grow excellent barley in East Kent, with a rainfall of lea: than 24ir would b« far

too r-ptentive of moisture for barley in Wc«L Su3sax, where -the rainfall is over 35in." — The Way tho Work is Done. — The mechanical analyses which have baen l-mdr at Rothamsted — there have been as n any as 300 of them — have been of soils from Kent, Surrey, and Sussex. Of these counties Mr Hall" has lately completed, with ths assistance of co-workers, some remarkable crop maps. The object of the maps, which represent work which has been in hand during a period of 10 y<;ars, is to exhibit tho connection between the geological formations with their associated soils and tho distribution of crops. Miss Jebb, now Mrs Wilkins, has shown in her great book on . .nail holdings ho-./ much market g-aidcning is a matter of geology ; Mr Primrose M'Connell, as a farnioi with a gaolo^ical traming, has liarpad fo.- some years on the relatio-ns of agriculture and the rocks Now come the Rothamsted maps to give no small imp-stii* to tho study of the geology of farming and fruit-growing The maps are based on the reports of tne acreage under various crons in Juno, 1908 This was the plan :— A large scale outline <nap of the three •counties, showirep the parish boundaries, was then prepai cd for each crop, and I thon a numbor of b!ack*dot-s were placed in each pari-.li, according to the acreage j under the particular crop. The area re-prf-,3nt<ed by one black dot is not always the same, but is generally VI acros. ?o that v. hen making up the wheat map, if a parish contained 350 acres under wheat, 1 sei'en blank dots should be distributed somewhe.e about the area occupied by that parish on th-i man. The linal result is a map crowded with black dots in parts where the crop in question is groA-n largeij. but with perhaps only a dot heie and ther3 in other parts where che crop ;s; s but little grow n. IV.- CHLOROFORMING THE SOIL. — -\;id the Astonishing Results That Follow.- ■ But it is not only in iU experimental plots and at its desks that Rothamstetl does good woi k Thsre is always some inteM-s'-ing- laboratory investigation a/oofc. One is going on now which carries the question of the artificial sterilisation of the soil much farther than it has been carried .ilready. Before it is finished it may throvv a valuable light not only on a theory which is entertained in America as to plants poieoning themselves by their own excretions — I doubt whether Mr Hal! bo-lie ves in it — bul on tha causes of clover sickness. It has been known for a quarter of a century that when soil is partially sterilised, either by heat or by volatile antiseptics, it beeomee capable of yielding larger crops Some years ago the action of Carbon disuiphid» was noticed by the owner of a vineyard who had put it into his soil to kill phjlloxsra. Dr Russell and Dr Hutchinson, of Rothamsted, havt treated the soil both by boiling water and toluene. Now th-j strange thing is thai whereas untreated coils contain from five to nine million organisms per gramme — say, as Dr Rus*3!J puts it ■> ividly, a ealtspoonful — and the treatment with toluene cuts tham down immediately to about one-half, .it is nevertheless tha fact that very shortly after the efl'tcts of the antiseptic have gone off the population of the gramme of 6011 rises to 40.000.000 or more. And the ammonia production of that gramme of soil has immensely increased in comparison with tho nioduction before it was chloroformed. Hie conjlusion drawn is inevitable — that th«* untreated soil contains a factor, not bacterial, limiting the development of bacteria, this factor being put out of action by toluening. Dis Russell and Hutchinson have satisfied themselves that the factor was not. as has been suggested, a toxin. Tht. thought it must be biological, so they locked closely at the treated soil. — Arresting the Progress of Evolution. — They iiddo the suggestive discovery thaL th? tolueii'ngr had killed off all "ihe infusoWa and some of the amoebae. Now tin -.»> Traj'n'riirjs are known to devour biict >na. and all of them, by reason of thoh ':•-£» <-»izj — about a thousand times that of soil b.iptena — :nusc be severs compelitoro with the bacteria for the available fooc ! suppiy. Only E T. Reed, surely, could do justice to a stat? of things when erf ... .i..»s sri Tie of which arc a thousandfoV '^ -t'T than t'"» others, are struggling for thf *ame food ' Th-» inha.V.t:tnt^ of the soil we arp speakin? of — life iincro-organic flora, not. of course, \ho which are removed by n\->jh lobo-iou 1 * hand-p.ckinc before the sons are expei imentcd >n — may bs divided jouprhly in*xj two cla^s^s. There is th<* olpss >f saprophytes, wh'.oh live on and o^Vet f>-? d« of organic matter Thfre is also rhe ola.ss consittimr, first, of tho jliatcoc v«\ wh:<'h e-a. up the liv n<? tific "n>:. and. in the scond place, of Rrifp oritanisms 'iiimical ir other ways to bucleria Th- sapfonliyes :ncroasp the fertility of tb<* soil h} nrodueinff ammonia, fixinpr nitro'r°n and "o on Thp pha!?O'"vt''»s and tin' «uriilpr c-rsran'-sms. b"oau=.' > t'lev )>rej on thp sa.nrophytes. ore inimical to soil fe-tihtv T^ •■ 1 oirl:n-irv state of tlnnjcs N.i*.uro kefps fhinc^ f.-i rl\ balanced T!ie bacteria, or saproiihvtes cannot multiply

infin.'^.v b^ausc of the phago"yte:s The )>h.iy •< - 106. in thoir turn, cannot get out of -lairl air because of r he limited amount of f'fd vr 1 » r i'«r When th<> man of science roinos a-'onpr with hu toluene, the phae-o^'-te? ar • billed outright. On the other hand, the bacteria 1 suoros germinate ant' iT.ultipiy wth gr«iT rapidity, for is not the coast clear of their enemies and comn't tor«; r ' Th<»j can even fall on and eat their doad rivals \t nres'-rt Drs Russell and Hutchinson are ' nsragec in further investigations, but they may well ask whether it may not be possible to suppress, in ordinary

field -?oil, by any economical and. practical pro -ass, destructive and competing organisms. It is unnecessary to enlarge on the .mporrance of the matter from tho practical end scientific point of view. For the present, we havo the crop results obtaint H at Rothamsfced, whic.ii I may summarise in the preceding tablo. The third crop, of wheat, was standing w h-en I was at Rothainstod. As Drs jlusseil aid Hutohinson cay, the differences are of the same order as those ob-T-ained in rye Jt should be explained that the crops grown on heated soils are shorter in the straw and more compact than the others. The sou ussd in :he experimc its was taken from tli3 strip at Rothamstod which had been untnanared for years. Tiia results are very similar to those obtained from fertile soils. Every student of agriculture tnd horticulture will look forward with interest to the next ne-vs of the experiments in killing- off the foxes of the mioro-organic worL..- ;n order lo make rooir. for- the chickens. Is such extraordinary upsettir.g o f the balance of Nature-, let alone ja resting- the progress of evolution — for the inf.isvjria are. a great advance in development on bacteria. — likely to be justified by its final results? If so, instead of applying our.selvos to breeding more active varieties of bacteria, the work taken in hand will ba that of removing the factors which keep the bacteria from doing their utmost towards the establishment of soil fertility. At prese-nt we do not appear to utilise the soil-bacteria to th<* full. In consequence, in the matte: of manuring, we are enormously wast*."ul. Take farmyard manure Roughly epeaking, wa get a quarter of it back in the crop, and another quarter ssams to be- left in the land. Whe-re is the remaining half?

iWhtai fin ley swiiUb Mangold ,'Hay | (^2 (2 (id (eo-I (1-5 j to-is) tons) tons) tent) |.-ons) I lb. Ib. lb. Ib. i 11) Kitroeren .! 60 40 "9S 149 149 Phosphoric acid 21*1 20-; 21-7 529 I i» '{ L'ota»h . . ..; 2SB 35"7 V 9"7 300-7 | 50"0

r [2) ;3) :*) :«) ['articles bet £ inch Vte »» TffT »» tweea — and i» <> it <> ■212 1 - in diameter = fii.e gravel -j-',- in diame'er = coaise sanr*. c ij in diameter = fine sand. ,T, T ' f j in diameter = silt. mzvir in diameter = &n* ait.

, WMu-hf ''Vci-'nt f.f Prvl «• r, r 1,,. -r^i^j c P- Graii- \ picht 1 . Fir-t fv p llyi-— , Unt en'-.! ' 103-ns IT 1' jO> Heat.-, l'.-2-O: ft»-.' ! O lfi) Tni d 120-07 U7b 120 secr.ul ' roy of Koat'o .'i "in. i 'ots. Bti- '«v . ■ •• - Ti -• .-•»! . ' 4T34 « r >S iro H'-.T <: . .. SfeOT 11 -' ft 131 Toliir- .d . 40 .6 7 71 Dl Ipor cent I 1-147 742 1-170 ! -27<> I _