Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1878 — The English Scientific Farm. [ARTICLE]

The English Scientific Farm.

The famous English experimental farm Of Ruthatbsted, 1,000 fertile acres in Hertfordshire, twenty-five miles from London on the Midland railway, is described in an interesting manner by Prof. Silliman, who has recently visited it; John Behnet Lawes inherited the property in 1834, a fine old English estate, with its park of oaks and ancient mansion, and for nearly half a century, in company with Dr. J. H. Gilbert and a |arge corps of assistants, Mr. Lawes has devoted himself to agricultural chemistry on a large scale; he has also set apart a fund of £IOO,OOO and a section of land for the continuance of theso investigations after he is gone. The purpose is to discover wk at crops are best for different soils, what fertilizers will best assist their growth, and to experiment on such a scale, both as to area and time, that the fundamental principles of farming may be made as plain and sure as those of any other business. In 1855 Mr. Lawes was presented with a

laboratory by public subscription, and there Dr. Gilbert and a considerable staff of assistants have been at work since, superintending experiments, making and applying manures and analyzing soils and crops. - The results of this long and careful investigation have established that barn-yard manure can only carry the production of hay to a limit about half the maximum that can be reached with mineral manures alone, which have produced five and a half tons to the acre. On unmanured land the farm yields fourteen bushels of wheat to the acre, but with barn-yard manure the yield has risen to thirty-five bushels, which is as well as the mineral manures can do.