Finally, the experts in agriculture overlapped with the chemical group, since many of the questions before them were concerned with the chemistry of the soil. I have already mentioned how the action of _B. diazotans_ disintegrated the upper strata of the land and reduced the soil to a friable material. This formed one of the most troublesome features in the cultivation problem, since the porosity of the ground allowed water to sink through, and thus plants sown in the affected fields were left without any liquid upon which they could draw for sustenance. It was J. F. Hope, I believe, who finally suggested a solution of the matter. His process consisted in mixing colloid minerals such as clays with the soil and thus forming less permeable beds; and the agricultural experts were able to establish the minimum percentages of clay which were required in order to make crops grow. I have mentioned these points in order to show how much we in the Area depended upon the pure scientists for help. But it must not be supposed that only those lines of scientific investigation capable of immediate application were kept in view by Nordenholt. I learned later, as I shall tell in its proper place, that he had cast further afield than that. I cannot give details of the work on the scientific side, because I have no intimate acquaintance with them; but I met the results on every hand in the course of my own department’s affairs. From day to day a new machine would be passed for service and put into operation, some fresh catalyst would be sent down for trial on a large scale after having been tested in the laboratory, or there might be a slight variation in the relative quantities of the ingredients in some of our factory processes. There was a constant touch between research and large-scale operations.