Jealott's Hill Research Station

Abstract

THE future of agriculture is bound up with the development of the fertiliser industry. Farming without manures, the exploitation of the natural resources of the soil, is characterised by large areas and declining yields; it is only rendered possible by cheap and abundant labour on one hand or a high degree of mechanisation on the other. The first step towards more permanent conditions and a higher level of production is usually the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen by the agency of leguminous crops, aided when necessary by the addition of phosphate and of lime. The use of animal manures follows. Then in the search for nitrogen, farmyard manure is enriched by the feeding of purchased feeding stuffs. At this stage the need for further phosphate became insistent, and we reach the level of the best British farming of the 'seventies.