Agricultural, botanical, and chemical results of experiments on the mixed herbage of permanent meadow, conducted for more than twenty years in succession on the same land. Part II. - The botanical results.

Separate from:: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Part IV, 1882., 1882. 299 x 239 mm. 4to. [ii], 1181-1413, [1 blank] pp. Numerous tables (including 3 folding). Original printed wrappers; top cover lacking. Ex library rubber stamps. Very good. John Bennet Lawes, a pioneer of science, farming and industry, and Joseph Henry Gilbert collaborated for more than fifty years as they built the Lawes's estate of Rothamsted into a world-famous institution of agricultural chemistry. In 1834 Lawes inherited the manor and estate of Rothamsted after studying at Eton and Oxford without taking a degree. Lawes used what he learned from agricultural experiments (truncated) to produce "super-phosphate" and other products by which he became quite rich. In 1889 Lawes put Rothamsted under the control of the Lawes Agricultural Trust, with an endowment of £100,000, so that its work would not cease with his death. "In 1843 he started on a regular basis the Rothamsted agricultural experiment station; and in June of that year called to his aid, as coadjutor and technical adviser, Dr. (afterwards Sir) Joseph Henry Gilbert. Together Lawes and Dr. Gilbert instituted and carried out a vast number of experiments of enormous benefit to the agricultural community at large, the details of which were recorded in the 'Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society,' the Journals of the Chemical Society and of the Royal Agricultural Society, and other publications. Two main lines of inquiry were followed - the one relating to plants, the other to animals. In the former case the method of procedure is described in the official 'Memoranda' in which it was shown how endeavours had been made 'to grow some of the most important crops of rotation, each separately, year after year, for many years in succession on the same land, without manure, with farmyard manure, and with a great variety of chemical manures, the same description of manure being as a rule applied year after year on the same plot. Experiments on an actual course of rotation without manure and with different manures were also made: 'wheat, barley, oats, beans, clover and other leguminous plants, turnips, sugar beet, mangels, potatoes, and grass crops having been thus experimented on. The main object of the experiments on animals (commenced in 1847) was to ascertain how they could be most economically fed for human consumption ; but incidentally information of great value was obtained towards the solution of such problems as the sources in the food consumed of the fat produced in the animal body, the characteristic demands of the animal body (for nitrogenous or non-nitrogenous constituents of food), in the exercise of muscular power, and the comparative characters of animal and vegetable food in human dietaries." [DNB]. See: Llinos Thomas, Sir John Bennet Lawes, Pioneer of Rothamsted Experimental Station. Harpenden History. See: DNB. (Inventory #: S4219)