You know, this applied science is just as interesting as pure science and what’s more it’s a damned sight more difficult.
William Bate Hardy164(1864–1934) Letter to Henry Tizard
Introduction
Following the lead of the Americans in the late nineteenth century, dozens of specialised public sector agricultural research institutes were set up around the world during the early years of the twentieth century.165 In countries like Germany and France, state-run agricultural experimental units had been established as early as the 1850s, but these were largely desultory, uncoordinated affairs in comparison with the US Land Grant and State Agricultural Experiment Stations networks. Most of the new European agricultural research centres were relatively small and tended to specialise in local crops, often under the control of a regional administration. This meant that breeders in such centres were often less aware of scientific developments in the wider world, many of which might have had useful application to their own crops. Unlike the USA, where much of the post nineteenth century agriculture was starting with a clean slate on largely virgin land with new crops, most of the farming in Europe occurred in the context of centuries of local and regional traditions that complicated broader strategic management by the nation state.
One solution that was applied in the Netherlands was to establish a single national centre of crop innovation. This Dutch initiative occurred at about the same time the US system was finally being completed in the early twentieth century. Following the US lead, albeit on a smaller scale, the government of the Netherlands decided to establish a systematic network of research and extension operations. The difference was that such a small country could easily base its entire network in a single centre. The centre was duly built at Wageningen, near Arnhem, which is in the largely agricultural province of Gelderland. This happened in 1912 when the Institute
for Breeding of Field Crops was established as a unit of the State College for Agriculture, Horticulture and Silviculture. Shortly thereafter the name was changed to the Institute for Plant Breeding (IvP), an institution in which all aspects of breeding were concentrated, including education, research, variety development, registration and testing. Unlike the still very much extant US system, however, the Dutch network was largely dismantled during the privatisation/rationalisation manias of the 1980s and 1990s. Today its functions have been dispersed to a mul- titude of successor organisations which, in their contorted complexity, rather resemble the often bewildering collage of plant research centres that existed in the UK during the early 1980s.166We will now look in some detail at these centres and the rather different ways that UK public sector plant research evolved, particularly compared with the successful US model examined in the previous chapter.
The UK – a laissez-faire approach
In countries that lacked the tradition of systematic top-down governance that we have seen manifest in the USA and the Netherlands, public sector research institutes tended to evolve in a less coherent and more ad hoc manner. This was particularly true in the UK where a variegated patchwork of institutes and research centres gradually arose over the course of the twentieth century. To get some idea of the very different evolutionary pathway of crop research in the UK, as compared with the USA, we will now consider the development of a few of the better-known British agricultural research institutes.167 This development took place within the context of a relatively ‘hands-off ’, laissez-faire attitude to state intervention in the UK that contrasts strongly with the more interventionist policies found in the USA and much of the remainder of Western Europe. For example, the Royal Agricultural Societies in the UK received patronage but no government support until well into the twentieth century.168 And it was not until 1910 that the administration of Lloyd George introduced the first systematic funding programme for agricultural research and education, almost fifty years later than in the USA.169In the meantime, it was up to the private individual, the successor of ‘Turnip’ Townshend, Thomas Coke, and their ilk, to step into the breach.
For this reason, we find that nearly all of the early agricultural research centres in the UK were originally set up as privately owned and operated establishments. This fact is reflected in their often convoluted ownership and governance, a situation that has persisted in many cases to this day. These research centres were often established following an initiative by a wealthy individual, rather than as any considered aspect of government policy. This led to the growth of a hotchpotch of institutes around the country that developed in their own sometimes rather eccentric ways, largely in the
absence of any sort of coherent overall national plan. The early institutes were independent of one another and, at least initially, of the state. Despite being brought under a measure of public control later in the twentieth century, the UK institutes always retained a degree of autonomy and distance from government that was quite different from the more closely scrutinised and heavily managed US and European agricultural research centres.
There were advantages and disadvantages to these different arrangements. In the UK, a lack of central direction could have affected overall efficiency: for example, a given institute might duplicate some activities of research centres elsewhere in the country. On the other hand, the greater freedom of UK researchers enabled them to pursue innovative avenues of investigation, largely on their own initiative.170 UK institutes were also more effectively shielded than their US or European counterparts from political or other pressures, whether at local or central levels. On the other hand, separation of most UK research institutes from universities, in contrast to the close relationship between SAES and Land Grant Universities in the USA, was a distinct disadvantage. Unlike the more welcoming attitude to technology related studies at most US universities, UK academia tended to be rather hostile. The attitudes of influential thinkers like John Henry Newman and John Stuart Mill are typical of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: For Newman, a uni- versity existed to produce: ‘a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, a candid, equitable, dispassionate mind, [and] a noble and courteous bearing’ in the student.171 Uni- versities were not concerned with applied science, least of all anything linked to industries such as agriculture. Surprisingly for such a vigorous proponent of utili- tarianism, Mill’s views on the role of the university were equally unequivocal: ‘It is not a place of professional education. . . . Their object is not to make skilful lawyers and physicians or engineers, but capable and cultivated human beings.’172Note that both of these learned gentlemen stress the role of a university in producing ‘culti- vated’ persons – but certainly not cultivated plants.
The contrast between these sentiments and those of their transatlantic con- temporaries, such as Morrill, could not have been starker. Thus we find that most of the early agricultural institutes in the UK tend to be private ventures, with few enduring ties with the unwelcoming universities. Surprisingly for a country whose wealth was largely based on industrial innovation, this myopic academic hostility was not restricted to agriculture; it often applied to manufacturing industry in general. In a few cases the unreceptive attitude of UK universities towards industry led to the establishment of private technology colleges by various company con- sortia. An interesting example is the mining industry, which underpinned the entire UK economy for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Mine owners were the oil-rich Arabian Sheikhs of their day, commanding a similar measure of
disposable wealth. Following the failure of negotiations with Cardiff University, the mine owners of South Wales set up a private college at Treforest in 1912 with the enormous bequest for the time of £250 000. This sum was far more than the entire budget of the much larger public university in the principal Welsh city of Cardiff.173 The Treforest School of Mining went on to be a premier centre of mining technology innovation, to the detriment of the universities, until it joined the public sector in the 1950s, and evolved into the University of Glamorgan in the 1990s.174
One of the few private initiatives in the UK to emulate the Land Grant Universities of the USA came to grief in the 1890s due to academic obstinacy. This happened when Alfred Palmer, founder of the profitable Huntley and Palmer biscuit company, attempted to establish a college in Reading, near London, to meet the needs of local farmers and horticulturists. He was joined by Leonard Sutton, who was owner of Sutton’s Seeds, one of the oldest seed companies that dated back to 1806. Sutton later became a keen supporter of the application in plant breeding of the recently redis- covered Mendelian principles of heredity. These two well-heeled and highly motivated gentlemen joined up with an equally wealthy landowner and stockbreeder of the area, Lord Wantage. The college was duly established and went on to become Reading University, which is still one of the tiny number of UK universities with any kind of agricultural focus. However, once they were in charge, the faculty members at Reading rejected the US model and sought to define their organisation and course structures according to conventional UK academic criteria.175
In this generally unwelcoming atmosphere from both academia and the state, it was up to private individuals in the UK to set up their own initiatives to ensure the more systematic application of scientific knowledge to crop improvement. Britain had no Jonathan Turner or Justin Morrill and, even if such a person had existed, they would almost certainly have been ignored or spurned. Fortunately for UK agriculture, however, the late Victorian and Edwardian eras were times of immense prosperity for large numbers of successful industrialists, many of whom went on to become influential scientific philanthropists. It was to such men of independent means that the country owes the origin of almost all of its early ventures in applied plant science. These ventures include such well-known centres as the Rothamsted, John Innes, and Welsh Plant Breeding institutions. We will now look briefly at these British centres of crop research and innovation.
Rothamsted
The earliest UK research centre, and almost certainly the oldest extant agricultural research station in the world, was established at Rothamsted, near London. The Rothamsted laboratory has an interesting provenance. In 1842, James Murray, an
Irish doctor who dabbled in chemistry as a hobby, discovered that acid converts calcium phosphate into a soluble mixture of calcium hydrogen phosphate and calcium dihydrogen phosphate. This mixture is the basis of superphosphate, an extremely effective slow-release fertiliser. Murray then patented a process for the large-scale manufacture of an inexpensive form of the fertiliser. The industrialist and amateur scientist, John Bennett Lawes, purchased the patent from Murray and soon the new fertiliser was in widespread use in England. As a reward, grateful farmers offered Lawes the choice of having a laboratory built for his scientific hobbies, or the equivalent value in silver plate. Like any good scientist, Lawes chose laboratory over lucre, and it was duly erected on his country estate at Rothamsted just north of London.176 Lawes was one of those classical mid-Victorian scientist-entrepreneurs who went on to use the profits from his business, in this case the manufacture of artificial fertilisers, to fund his personal scientific interests. Lawes appointed the chemist Joseph Henry Gilbert as his chief scientific collaborator. The two of them went on to carry out a singularly impressive amount of pioneering research, in which they established many of the principles of crop nutrition. Therefore the well- respected research institute at Rothamsted owes its origins to a judicious mixture of private enterprise, philanthropy and scientific expertise. A similar mixture of motives and mechanisms was behind many other agricultural and technological advances during this period before the advent of ‘big science’ and ‘big business’.
Until 1900, the Rothamsted research centre was funded and managed by a trust financed from the profits of the Lawes fertiliser business. Gradually, over the twentieth century, Rothamsted began to increase its reliance on public funds, but its staff remained employees of the trust until 1991 and the site and buildings are still privately owned.177 Rothamsted is now one of the few remaining public institutes in the UK where some crop research is still done, although even this work tends to be mostly strategic, rather than applied, in nature. Strategic research is often relatively fundamental in nature but is regarded as likely to lead to an eventual application. In contrast, fundamental, basic, or blue-skies (these are all synonyms) research is often purely curiosity driven, with no notion of any application. Therefore, an investigation of the genome of wheat would be regarded as strategic research, whereas the study of an obscure Patagonian moss would be basic research. Although Rothamsted currently includes research on crops in its portfolio, this work is of a strategic, rather than applied, nature and so, for example, the institute does not produce new crop varieties for farmers.
John Innes Centre
Another well-known institute that was originally a private crop research venture is the John Innes Centre, now located near the city of Norwich in Norfolk. This
institute was founded, in 1910, as the John Innes Horticultural Institution in the London suburb of Merton. The institute was funded by a bequest from John Innes, a wealthy Victorian merchant in the City of London. Innes was a successful property and land dealer, and a founder of the City of London Real Property Company. Following his death in 1904, Innes bequeathed his estate to be used for ‘the pro- motion of horticultural instruction, experimentation and research’. During its early days as a Horticultural Institution, John Innes scientists produced many new vari- eties of ornamental plants. In the 1930s, the Institution also pioneered the use of sterilised gardening composts for the more controlled cultivation of plants, especially indoors. To this day, John Innes composts are a mainstay of gardeners and indoor growers throughout Britain.178 In 1945, the institute moved to Bayfordbury, Hert- fordshire, and then, in 1966–1967 to its present site near Norwich. Like Rothamsted, the John Innes Centre (as it is now known) was only brought fully into the public domain in the 1990s; and even today the John Innes Foundation (a private entity) still owns the land and buildings where the Centre is based. So, although the John Innes Centre is now regarded as a publicly funded research organisation, the Foundation still owns all its estate and almost 30% of its current funding is from private sources.179Today the John Innes Centre focuses largely on basic studies of plant and microbial science.
Welsh Plant Breeding Station
Meanwhile, in Wales,180the Welsh Plant Breeding Station was established in 1919, largely thanks to a private donation from Lord Milford, who was a successful shipping magnate in South Wales. Lord Milford provided a capital grant of £10 000 plus an annual maintenance grant of £1000 for ten years. Thanks to the lobbying of breeder George Stapleton, who went on to become the first Director of the Station, Milford’s bequest was matched from government funds. However, Milford made his funding conditional on the institute being run along commercial lines, with the profits going to fund the scientific research.181In the immediate aftermath of World War I, during which Britain had suffered serious food shortages (but was saved by imports of US food), there was much concern that food security be improved by stimulating agricultural production, especially in regions like Wales.182 Because Wales is a largely non-arable region, the Plant Breeding Station focused on pasture crops such as clover and grasses.
One of its most notable successes was to breed an exceptionally productive variety of ryegrass (called S23) for use in fattening pasture for livestock. This ryegrass variety was on the UK National Seed List for an unprecedented sixty years, from 1933–1993. Despite the immediate focus of the Station on the improvement of
grazing pasture for the local community of small dairy and sheep farmers, Stapleton was also an enthusiast for the fullest and most efficient possible exploitation of all available land. In practice, this meant the conversion of pasture to more productive arable use, and the opening up of new lands by bringing the plough back to the highlands of Scotland, England and Wales. In the latter venture Stapleton was supported and funded by government in the guise of the Development Commission, and by industry in the form of ICI, the largest fertiliser manufacturer in the British Empire.183 Although most people today would react with horror to the notion of ploughing up the highlands of Britain, much of which has now been converted to National Parks, many of these lands were intensively farmed in pre-Roman times.184 If wheat could be grown in the Scottish Highlands and the Yorkshire Dales several thousand years ago, there seemed to be no reason not to re-establish arable farming, especially in the context of the need to improve national self-sufficiency in food production. In the end, Stapleton’s crusade foundered, largely owing to the inability (due to lack of cash) of highland farmers to invest in intensive farming methods, and the idea was quietly dropped. We will come back to the sometimes controversial issue of winning new arable land, whether from virgin areas or from pasture, in the context of the current debate on ‘feeding the world’ in Chapter 14.
During the 1940s, the Station moved to the University of Wales at Aberystwyth and passed into public ownership.185 In 1953, the Station finally moved to Plas Gogerddan, north of Aberystwyth, and the Plant Genetics Department was created with the aim of studying inheritance of physiological characteristics affecting crop production. This initiative marked a shift in research from its previous focus on immediately applied targets to a more strategic focus that would not necessarily result in any practical applications in the short or medium term. Such a shift in research ethos gradually became more and more pronounced in agricultural insti- tutes in industrial countries over subsequent decades, as we will explore in sub- sequent chapters. From 1964, more immediately practical work on establishing hill pastures was carried out at upland field centres in mid-Wales, rather than at the Station itself. In 1990, this collection of research centres changed its name to the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research (IGER). Today, most of the research at IGER relates to basic and strategic, rather than applied, plant science.
Cambridge Plant Breeding Institute
One of the earliest UK research centres to be established de novo with the support of