Fifty years of physics at rothamsted

Rothamsted Experimental Station had been an active centre of agricultural research for 70 years when B. A. Keen was appointed in 1913. Keen was a pure physicist, bringing no particular knowledge of soils or agriculture to his new job and the philosophy behind his appointment is still applied today, namely that the best training for research in an applied subject is a thorough grounding in a basic science. Making a second start after the war as 'Goldsmiths' Company's Soil Physicist', Keen built up a small department, and although the present day department is a little bigger, it is not much bigger, and with six scientific officers and three experimental officers we are only a small fraction of the 140 and 70 in these grades in the Station as a whole.