Abstract
THIS journal fully maintains the high character it has acquired under the able editorship of Mr. H. M. Jenkins. The part under notice is a bulky volume of nearly five hundred pages, and includes some eight or ten original papers by well-known agricultural writers, besides the always valuable annual reports of the entomologist, chemist, and botanist to the Society. Prof. Wortley Axe reports on a recent outbreak of abortion in Lincolnshire ewe-flocks, and Prof. Robertson on anaemia in sheep. Mr. S. B. S. Druce, Barrister-at-Law, has a significant paper on the alteration in the distribution of the agricultural population of England and Wales between the returns of the census of 1871 and 1881. Dr. J. H. Gilbert, F.R.S., contributes a sympathetic memoir of the late Dr. Augustus Voelcker, the paper being accompanied by a graphic portrait. Sir J. B. Lawes, F.R.S., writing on sugar as a food for stock, concludes that even at its present low price, sugar does not appear to be an economical substance to use when brought into comparison with other foods which are available to the farmer. Mr. H. Ling Roth writes on Franco-Swiss dairy farming, and Mr. W. Little on the agriculture of Glamorganshire, while the longest contribution to the curreut part is the first instalment of a report on Canadian agriculture, by Prof. Fream. The author confines his remarks chiefly to the prairie region of British North America, and after discussing the physical and geological features of this vast region, the character of its soils, the composition and value of its native herbage, and the peculiarities of its climate, he proceeds to give an exhaustive description of the agriculture of Manitoba and the North-West Territories, and concludes with an expression of his opinions as to the probable future of prairie farming. The moderate and impartial spirit in which this paper is written will enhance its value to readers on both sides of the Atlantic, and lead them to look forward to the publication of the second part, in which it is proposed to deal with the agriculture of the Eastern Provinces of the Dominion. In the course of his inquiries, Prof. Fream appears to have discovered in “goose wheat” a novelty both of botanical and agricultural interest. This part of the Journal also contains a report on the field and feeding experiments at Woburn, by Dr. J. Augustus Voelcker, in which the author gives evidence of the same attention to accuracy and matters of detail as were so eminently characteristic of his late father, to whose vacant post as consulting chemist to the Society he was recently elected by the Council.
Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England.
Second Series. Vol. 21, Part I. (London: John Murray, 1885.)
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Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England . Nature 32, 222 (1885). https://doi.org/10.1038/032222b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/032222b0