HONOR TO AGRICULTURE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2590, 26 July 1882, Page 3

HONOR TO AGRICULTURE.

Mr John Bennet Lawes, F.B S., F. 0.5., L L D., who has just been created a baronet, was born in 1814, and succeeded to his estate of Bothamsted, in Hertfordshire, in 1828. Possessed of independent means, a handsome property, and a beautiful old manor boose and demesne, Mr Lawes at once interested himself in agriculture. In October, 1834, he first commenced regular experiments in agricultural chemistry on taking possession of his property and home at Bothamsted, and front that date tip to the present time Mr Laweshas unceasingly been applying his scientific knowledge to the solution of questions affecting practical agriculture. In the commencementof his experiments, among o’her subjects, the effect of bones as a manors on land occupied his attention for some time. A friend and neighbor, the then Lord Da ere, particularly directed his notice to the fact that bones were very variable in theic effect in different soils. Several hundred experiments were accordingly made, some np.n crops in the field and others with plants in pots, in which the constituents found in the ashes of plants as well as others ware supplied la various states of combination. Striking results were gained from these experiments, in which the neutral phosphate of lime in boner, bone ash and apatite were rendered soluble by means of sulphuric acid, and the mixture applied for root crops The result obtained on a small scale in 1837 8-9 were tush as to lead to more extensive trials in the field in 1810 1, and to the final taking out of a patent early in 1842. This being done, Mr Lawes established large works in the neighborhood of London for the manufacture of super-phosphate of lime, by which name the manure is known which has produced such a revolution in the science of agricultures Mr Lawer was elected a Fallow of the Boyal Society in 1854, and in 1867 the Boyal medal was awarded to him conjointly with Dr. Gilbert, by the council of the society. Mr Lawes has also received a gold medal from the Imperial Agricultural Society of Bussio. Last June the Emperor of Germany by Imperial decree awarded the gold medal of merit for agriculture to Mr Lawes and Dr Gilbert jointly, in recognition of their services for the development of scientific and practical agriculture. The honor, therefore which has been recently conferred upon Mr Lawes is merely a final and national recognition of his reputation and life work. Mr Lawes’ manor house is a remarkably fine specimen of old English arch'’ etura, and tho demesne surrounding it conta, ,s some magnificent timber, including an avenue of limes, which for size and regularity o? dimension* are perhaps unsurpassed in the South of England. Around the family mansion lie the 500 acres which form the experimental station of agricultural research, with which Mr Lawes' name is so intimately connected. It is not only entirely maintained by him, but he has further set apart a sum of £IO,OOO and certain areas of lands for the continuance of the investigations after Lis death. There are mw stored in the laboratory about thirty thousand bottles of camples of experi-mentally-grown vegetable produce, animal products, ashes, and soils.' The absents necessity of the presence of mtragpn (naturally or artificially supplied) in land in order to maintain the feralley of the soil was the cardinal discovery made by Mr Lawes, Formerly it was supposed that the fertility of the soil might bo maintained for an indefinite period if the different mineral constituents carried off by the crop were annually returned in due quantity as mineral manure to the soil. This theory only em. braced part of the truth. In his lost wort upon “ Fertility," Mr Lawes thus speaks of the great problem of the sources of nitrogen ; —“ I maintain that the amount of nitrogen, supplied to our crops from the atmosphere, whether as combined nitrogen brought down by rain or that absorbed by the soil, or the plant, constitutes but a very small proportion of the total amount they assimilate ; and that the soil itself (or manure) is practically the main source of”"their supply. Indeed, it is a question whether on arable land as much or mere may not be lost by drainage or otherwise than is supplied by the atmosphere. The field experiments on which these conclusions rest have, indeed, formed Mr Lawes’ principal work. Favored by position and circumstance, he has been enabled to carry out on a large scale most important op'rations. It would be impossible to go into the subject exhaustively. Commencing in 1843, fourteen acres, divided into about twenty plots, wero devoted to experiments in wheat, and seven acres, divided into twenty-four plots, to experiments upon turnips, Subsequently similar experiment* were made upon beans, clover, barley, and th* mixed herbage of permanent meadow land. The general plan was to select fields in a condition of agricultural ex-' haustion—i.e., in a state in which a fresh supply of manure was needed to fit the soil for the growth of another crop. Upon this exhausted soil each of the most important crops in the rotation were grown year after year upon the same spot, both withont manure and with many different description* of manure, e&eh of which was as a rule applied yearly to the same plot. Thus it became possible to determine the point of relative exhaustion or excessive supply of any of the constituents of the manure. Wheat has now been grown at Bothamsted for thirty eight years in saroeerion, turnips (with an interval of three years) for years, barley for thirty years, and so crtjF The practical value cf those experiments is obvious even from one fact—that, taking the results of, say, twenty years, the annual average produce in bushels of wheat per tore without manure was 16i, with farmyard manure exactly doable, and with artificial manure 35J bushels.