Abstract
IT is greatly to be regretted that the council of the Royal Agricultural Society has decided to publish the Society's journal in future as an annual volume. For fifty years the journal appeared twice in the year, and during the last eleven years it has appeared quarterly. The alteration now made is a very serious retrograde step. Not only is the space occupied by original articles and reports reduced to nearly one-half of that previously found in the Quarterly Journal but the publication of new matter is now seriously delayed. We have in this country a sad lack of any provision for the publication of important agricultural papers. Besides the weekly agricultural newspapers, we have only the journals of our agricultural societies; these are small annual volumes, with the exception of the late Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society. This journal, with a circulation of 10,000 copies, has hitherto done something to provide the required means of publication. In it the majority of the reports by Lawes and Gilbert has appeared. Where could such reports be published now? The question is a very serious one, for it involves the ignorance or instruction of our agricultural readers; and an agricultural society could do nothing more useful than the regular and systematic publication of all work relating to the improvement of agriculture. The Quarterly Journal now issued by the Board of Agriculture does not attempt to discharge this function; it is principally confined to the publication of statistical matter and the results of experiments carried out with funds supplied by the Board.
The Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England.
Vol. lxii., 1901. Pp. cciv + 403. (London: J. Murray.)
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W., R. The Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England . Nature 65, 483 (1902). https://doi.org/10.1038/065483a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/065483a0