FARM AND DAIRY

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 227, 7 January 1911, Page 3

FARM AND DAIRY

A SOU, PHENOMENON. USEFUL DISCOVERY. One of the most remarkable phenomena which crime under the notice of the British Association during the recent meeting at Sheffield was first noticed in the president's address to the agricultural sub-section, and was more fully explained in the paper subsequently read before the same sub-section (reports the London Standard). It concerns the life in sods ami the curious way in which the fertility of the soil is affected by the life of the microbes which live in it, a!nd embodies the most important discovqry that has been made for 50 years, so far as relates to agriculture. It has beer, known for many years that all kinds of natural manure are slowly turned into plant food by the action of certain bacteria. It was natural, therefore, to expect that the more there were of these benefieient bacteria the greater would be the rate at which the food would be prepared for the crops. "Soil sickness" has. however, been found in soils rich in these tiny organisms. A couple of years n<rn 'IV-«. Phsp"!| and Hutchinson discovered that sick soils might be cured by doses of chloroform or toluene or by partial sterilising by heat. After s'teaiii has been forced through the soil it recovered its fertility. Early last year, the two experimentalists announced that they had accumulated a number of data which led them to believe that a process was going on in the soil somewhat similar to the processes in blood. If a microbe entered the blood through a.wound it was immediately attacked by the .white corpuscles, which destroyed it, but which themselves i often died in the fight, and formed pus, I or festering matter. Microbes of- the same kind were to be found in soil—little jelly-like masses which ate up the foreign microbes. The most successful" experiments, following upon this discovery, have been performed on the peculiarly rich soils which gardeners use- for the cultivation of cucumbers and tomatoes, and most crops grown under glass. , '