HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



75 



yet not assimilable by the roots of plants. Plants 

 were in that respect like human beings. Their food 

 must be prepared for them. His hearers would 

 remember the story of the Irishman who expended 

 his last penny in buying a pennyworth of liver, which 

 he received instructions how to cook, and when the 

 liver was snatched out of his hands by a passing dog, 

 consoled himself by saying, " Now the fool doesn't 

 know how to cook it." [Laughter.] That was the 

 position of many plants in regard to their food, and 

 it was of no use for them to be supplied with nitrogen 

 or any other food in a form in which they could not 

 avail themselves of it. Before it could be made 

 assimilable soil had to be haunted by millions of 

 bacteria or ferment germs, which exercised so im- 

 portant an influence as to change the character of 

 the nitrates into free nitrogen, which in that form 

 could be taken up by the plants. If they were to 

 take a little soil, and calcine it so as to destroy these 

 germs, it would be impossible to grow plants on it. 



THE ADVANTAGE OF A CLOVER CROP. 



Dr. Taylor also noticed the influence of crops upon 

 soils. Taking clover and wheat as examples, he 

 showed that although more nitrogen was required by 

 clover than by wheat, wheat had diilSculty in finding 

 it in the soil, whilst clover appears to have found the 

 art of extracting the nitrogen from the atmosphere; 

 this power, it had been said by Professor Ville, was 

 a property of clover in common with other leguminous 

 plants. If any man could discover what the clover 

 had discovered there was 10,000/. awaiting him. That 

 sum was offered by the French Government more than 

 twenty years ago to the chemist who could discover 

 the means of tapping the great nitrogen supply which 

 the atmosphere contained. 



MANURES, 



Farmyard manure, which might be called the 

 general or all-round manure, if enriched with phos- 

 phate of lime, was, perhaps, the very best manure in 

 the whole world. It had been found by experiments 

 carried on by Mr. Lawes, at Rothamstead, and those 

 experiments had been confirmed by others on Messrs. 

 Packard's experimental farm, near Saxmundham, that 

 about one ton of farmyard manure to one cwt. of 

 super-phosphate was the best mixture. Nitrate of 

 soda ought to be used as a top-dressing very carefully. 

 Potash was one of the most important and essential 

 elements of plant life. For potato growing potash 

 was essential, and he was often surprised that the 

 cheap artificial manure called muriate of potash was 

 not more largely used by East Anglian agriculturists, 

 more particularly by potato growers. Dr. Taylor 

 dwelt upon the origin of iron pans, lime pans, the 

 effects of draining, the results of mixing soils, and the 

 mechanical action of stones upon the land. (With 

 reference to the last-named part of his subject the 

 Lecturer deprecated the practice of picking the stones 



firom the land.) He showed that the stones radiated 

 heat and kept the land warm, and mentioned instances 

 in the West of England in which the wheat crops had 

 fallen off through farmers picking stones off the land. 

 The Lecturer concluded by showing how the so-called 

 soil after all was nothing but the cupboard in which 

 the plant-food was contained. If the plant-food was 

 not there, the plants were in the condition of the 

 poor dog in the story of Mother Hubbard. [Laughter.] 

 If they were there in a scanty proportion the plant 

 was only half- fed and weakly. All plants, even the 

 healthiest, were, like animals, liable to attacks of 

 epidemics. The Lecturer related instances he had 

 seen in South Australia and elsewhere of poor and. 

 unmanured soils poverty-stricken in plant-food, pro- 

 ducing stinted, poor, miserable, workhouse-lookmg 

 plants, attacked by rust and bunt, and showing evi- 

 dence of the poverty of the soil in which they were 

 grown. 



ASTRONOMY. 

 By John Browning, F.R.A.S, 



THE Annual meeting of the Royal Astronomical 

 Society was held on February 8th, 



The most interesting portions of the report were 

 read : from these it appears that Mr, Common's new 

 reflector of five feet diameter was completed in 

 September last. Some trial photographs have been 

 taken with this instrument which are satisfactory. It 

 is proposed to apply this telescope to the direct 

 photography of the most important nebulae, and to 

 spectroscopic objects which require a very large 

 aperture. 



As it has been proposed to make a railway across 

 Blackheath, experiments have been made during the 

 year at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, on the 

 tremor caused by railway traffic. An observer at the 

 transit circle noted the times of all disturbances of 

 the image of the wires seen by reflection from the 

 surface of mercury, and other observers in trains or at 

 railway stations noted independently the positions 

 and movement of a great number of trains. On 

 comparing these two sets of observations it was 

 evident that tremors were caused by the trains when 

 they were a mile from the Observatory, and when 

 the trains were much nearer the mercury was so 

 disturbed that the reflected image was no longer 

 visible. 



The Astronomer Royal delivered his address on 

 delivering the Society's Gold Medal 10 Mr. Loewy. 



The interest in Mr. Isaac Roberts's wonderful 

 photograph of the nebulse in Andromeda increases 

 with further investigation, as it is spoken of as a new 

 cosmical revelation. 



Government has granted a pension of £100 a year 

 to the widow of Mr. Proctor. 



In April there will be no occultation of anything 



E 2 



