From this visit I gained: 1. A good overview of the state of agricultural soil mechanics worldwide. I was struck by the lack of direction and novelty in some of the work in this field. I am convinced that the work pursued in Canberra for the CRDC is amongst the best being undertaken anywhere in the world. 2. An appreciation of the shift in emphasis in research in agricultural soil mechanics, which in some respects mirrors the situation in the cotton research ~ the problems of tillage and compaction have been well studied, and are now of lower priority. Some environmental issues are rising in importance.and much soil mechanics research is now turning in these directions. 3. A detailed appreciation of many particular pieces of research, both through the conference papers and through the visits to research centres. There were a number of papers on compaction and stress measurement at the conference. I presented a paper on the uncertainty in compaction predictions that arises from the variability of soil properties. At the various research centres I saw work on permanent beds, agricultural soil mechanics following my own work, the mechanics of root growth, tillage and soil structural problems. I also discussed the experimental design and progress of work by Bruce Blunden undertaken under project CS06C, and reviewed some of the early results.