24 OCTOBER 1931, Page 14

Country Life

MORE ELEerare FARMS.

A new venture is to be made, is being made, at Rothamsted, known the world over as the first of agricultural research stations, the place where Gilbert and Lawes set afoot the science of artificial fertilizing and started a number of experiments that have been continuously carried on for nearly fourscore years. The station is old, but it is also extremely young, in the sense that the latest discoveries are investigated and promoted. Seldom does any agricultural trouble crop up anywhere without a direct appeal to Rotham- sted. Cotton, for example, is being grown there, to the end of investigating the maladies that begin to punish the cotton-growers in the Sudan. Its energetic director travels the world on a variety of missions. He visited the cotton area of the. Sudan. He was summoned to Palestine to discover why the desert did not flourish like the rose and to give assurance, if it might be, that, " Rivers of wine and oil Shall flow, as the Book assures."

But though the activities of Rothamsted are world-wide, and its essence the investigation of problems of pure science, it has some special duties to Great Britain and to the immediate needs of its producers.