Current Topics and Events

Abstract

THE Rothamsted Experimental Station has taken over the Stackyard field, Woburn, which for many years was held by the Royal Agricultural Society of England, and proposes to continue the experiments on wheat and barley in close association with the work at Rothamsted. Although the Royal Agricultural Society thus gives up its experimental farm, it is gratifying to know that the Society does not intend to break its connection with scientific research; it has set up a Research Fund and a Committee to initiate or receive schemes for investigation, and it proposes to carry out its experiments on the farms of its members. In the first instance four problems will be studied:—(1) The value of ground mineral phosphates, more particularly in the improvement of pasture. (2) The use of various forms of lime on grass and tillage crops. (3) The use of wild white clover, wild red clover, bird's-foot trefoil, etc., in laying down land to grass. (4) The profitable utilisation of whey.. We welcome this further evidence of the recognition now widely accorded by farmers to the necessity for further research work in agriculture, and we trust that fruitful means of carrying out such work will be found. There are certain difficulties which should be pointed out. Unless the programme of work and the actual experiments are closely supervised by scientifically trained men, there is great danger that the results may be incomplete, giving much less information than might otherwise be obtained. Without a carefully-drawn-up programme something vitally important is liable to be left undone, or some observation omitted, and in agricultural investigations lost opportunities rarely recur. Moreover, there is a real danger of overlapping; at the present moment there are already two separate bodies studying the effects of mineral phosphates on grassland; fortunately they have co-ordinated their efforts. Neither of these difficulties is insuperable and we have little doubt the Committee will be able to overcome them.