File:Artificial manures; their chemical selection and scientific application to agriculture (1909) (14781658225).jpg

Identifier: artificialmanure00villrich (find matches)
Title: Artificial manures; their chemical selection and scientific application to agriculture
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Ville, Georges, 1824-1897 Crookes, William, Sir, 1832-1919 Percival, John
Subjects: Fertilizers
Publisher: London, New York (etc.) Longmans, Green, and co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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m the Landes, thegatherings being dried at 212° F. Tiventy tvheat grains were soivnin each case. Calcic phosphate Potassic nitrate grainsStraw and roots . . 188160 wheat grains . . 43 231 Calcic phosphate Sodic nitrate grainsStraw and roots . . HO20 wheat grains . . 5 115 In fact the difference is just double. Soda, therefore, cannot,in this case at any rate, replace potash. I have already said thatthis proportion would admit of another mode of proof, which is asfollows : Instead of adding to the soil from the Landes a mixture ofcalcic phosphate and potassic nitrate, or of calcic phosphate andsodic nitrate onty, we add to each of these mixtures 62 grains ofpotassic silicate. In the absence of the silicate the plants grownby the aid of the sodic nitrate were inferior to those grown withthe potassic nitrate. But the addition of the silicate equalises theresults at once, and the sodic nitrate is now apparently equal in itseffects to the potassic nitrate. Why, it may be asked, do the two
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ACTION OF FERTILISING AGENTS 341 from those two examples that potash is sometimes capable of replac-ing soda, but it remained to be determined whether the conversewould hold good, that is to say, whether soda could be substitutedfor potash in certain plants, and whether they would suffer by suchsubstitution. With respect to corn I have no hesitation in sayingat once that the use of soda, to the exclusion of potash, seriouslyinterferes with the giowth of the plant, the crop falling to three-quarters. For this purpose I invoke the testimony of two experi-ments executed under widely different conditions, the results ofwhich verify and complete each other. For the reasons given inmy paper published in the Comjytes Bendus, of the Academy ofSciences, vol. li., I selected for my experiments some soil from theLandes which is naturally destitute of potash, each pot receiving155 grains of calcic phosphate and If grains of nitrogen. Thepotash and the soda were used in the state of nitrate. With

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