ANTAGONISM BETWEEN ANIONS AS RELATED TO 

 NITROGEN TRANSFORMATION IN SOILS 



CHARLES B. LIPMAN 



University of Cnlifornia, Berkeley, Cal. 



When a subject of biochemical research is of absorbing interest 

 from the purely scientific point of view it deserves the most 

 earnest consideration at our hands, but when it is of potential 

 practical value as well, it becomes fascinating. Such is the sub- 

 ject of salt effects in all its ramifications, as applied to the do- 

 main of biology and it is probably conservative enough to state 

 that nothing in recent work in biological science has engendered 

 greater activity and interest in research than the splendid series 

 of investigations of Loeb and his co-workers on the role of salts 

 in animal life. Of no smaller interest and significance, have been 

 the researches of modern plant physiologists in their applica- 

 tion, to the realm of plants, of the principles established' by Loeb. 



The writer has attempted during the past five years not only 

 to point out through his investigations the remarkable role of 

 salts in the physiological efficiency of soil bacteria in pure and 

 mixed cultures, but also the additional tasks of applying Oster- 

 hout's findings to the growth of plants in soils rather than in 

 solutions, and to correlate these effects with those noted for the 

 soil bacteria. The latter work was of course based on the fact 

 that the soil bacteria are admittedly one of the essential factors in 

 soil studies and of importance at least tantamount to that of any 

 other single factor in soil fertility. 



My first work^ dealt with pure cultures of Bacillus subtilis and 

 their ammonifying power in peptone solutions as affected by the 

 presence of various salts, singly, in combinations, and in various 

 concentrations. The effects of the positive or kation were studied 

 here exclusively, the chlorine ion being uniformly the anion 



1 Bot. Gaz., vol. 48, p. 105 and vol. 49, p. 41. 



295 



