DO PLANTS ABSORB NITROGEN FROM THE, AIR 7

Otago Witness, Issue 2810, 22 January 1908, Page 9

DO PLANTS ABSORB NITROGEN FROM THE, AIR 7

(Melbourne Weekly< T-imeff.) The Agricultural Research Association o£ Aberdeen has-. issWd' Part II o£ "Utilisation of Nitrogen in the Air," in the form of a, well-illustrated book of 120 pages. It j contains a. record of Mr Jamieson's further investigations during the past year, j the, result of which is assumed to be a j confirmation of the interesting, discovery ! previously announced by him, that all' plants "are provided l ' By Nature with, the means of ] utilising "to a greater or less extent the j nitrogen surrounding them, in the air, and as a corollary that the nodule or i tubercle theory is. without foundation. In Mr Jamfeson'a words, has "discovery arid' the conclusion that follows from it overturn the doctrine that has. hitherto prevailed and that has engaged attention for over 100" yeans-." The report snows that. Mr Jamieson. has expended! much; time,, patience, ingenuity atwt care in working out the details of his discovery and' fojanulatiing. his- conclusions. The members of. hia association, a set, of intelligent and hard-headed' Scotchmen,, whohave been in clpa& touch, with. Mr Jamfeson during the period of hia Teaeazcaea, scent to thoroughly endorse his< viaws,, which may suffice, to show that they are based on something- more substantial than airy imaginings. Mr Half, of Rothaansiesf,, England, on the other hand; in his- Cantor lecture delivered last December at the Society of Arts, said: "The net result, of such experiments (the Rothamcted experiments is that a plant must obtain, hx means ol ita root ita nitro^gen and^ its" ash constituents from- the simple inorganic compounds dissolved in water. Mr Jamieeon does not hesitate to impeach the correctness of the results, obtained At Rothamsted; ' Tftus> on. page 58_of his repprt we find the remark: — "No doubt ca» nsro be entertained that the. experiments made by' Eawes at Rothamsted- negativing- the absorption of nitrogen from, air are, not reliable, j that the conclusions, made, from them must unhesitatingly be rejected; and that, as BQuasingsuTt's experiments were.- made under conditions practically identical and resulted in similar abnormal and, 6mall plants, there exists na evidence against the absorption of nitrogen by plants," It ia a- question for scentiftc men to settle among themselves, and no doubt Mr Hall will avail himself of a suitable opportunity to take vp 1 the. cudgels on behalf of the Rothamsted Institution, of which he is tho distinguished principal. The average farmer knows from experience that even if plants are gifted by Nature with nitrogen generators possessing the faculty of assimilating nitrogen from the atmosphere, this power is in moet cases so limited that in order to obtain abundant crops it ia necessary to supply them with nitrogen in the soil. If one were to trust to hia crops of potatoes or mangels or other nitrogen-loving crops flourishing on atmospheric nitrogen, the result would be rather disastrous, and yet, -arguing from ana^ogv-. it might be supoosed that if Nature nrovided plants with nitrogen generators, these organs would have become most highly developed in those crops.