SCIENCE AND SOIL

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16722, 14 August 1928, Page 2

SCIENCE AND SOIL

ENGLISH EXPERIMENTS CAWTHRON LECTURE At tiio annual Cawthron Lecture delivered in Nelson by Sir John Russell, director of Bothnmsted Experimental Station, England, an interesting review of the foundation and operation of the Bothamsted Station was given. The'**first superphosphate was made there in a barn fitted up as a laboratory. For many years, said Sir John, the standard "recognised fertilisers, the nitrogenous, the phosphafic and the Dotassie, were regarded as sufficient for ail crops, but recently a good deal of scientific research had been done on the influence of other elements. By using ammonium chloride instead ot sulphate on barley crops a larger yield of grain was given, the chloride apparently stimulating the tillering. The increase varied from 1! to 8 bushels per acre, and had been obtained with wheat, barley, and oats. During the 86 years of the Broadbalk experiments on wheat there had been 80 kinds of seasons and the yields had varied from year to year. The amount of variation was least, with farmyard manure, and low with complete' dressings of artificial fertilisers. It was greatest with incomplete fertilisers, but it was also large on the unmanured plot. This accorded with the general experience, that proper manuring increased not only the yield, but the certainty of a yield, aud it emphasised the need of proper field experiments to guide farmers in their choice of fertilisers, and to save them from eriors which might prove costly.