THE FIXATION OF FREE NITROGEN BY CERTAIN 



FUNGI 



CHARLES OSCAR CHAMBERS 

 Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College, filillwater, Oklahoma 



The fact that contradictory results have appeared from time 

 to time in regard to the possibiUty of the fixation of free nitrogen 

 by a number of molds and higher fungi, together with the recent 

 development of a new and more rapid method for nitrogen 

 determination, has made it seem worth while to repeat some of 

 the published experiments by a new and more exact method. 



In its chemical aspects the method is that recently developed 

 and published by Dr. Otto Folin of the Medical School of Har- 

 vard University. It was suggested to me by Dr. P. A. Shaffer 

 of the Medical School of Washington University, as having 

 possibilities for this type of work. The problem undertaken 

 was suggested by Dr. B. M. Duggar of the Shaw School of 

 Botany, who had, himself, made some investigations along this 

 line by the older methods. The cultures were prepared at the 

 School of Botany and analyzed at the chemical laboratory of the 

 Medical School of Washington University. 



Acknowledgments are due to the men who have lent me their 

 aid and direction in the prosecution of this work: to Dr. Shaffer 

 for his patience and assistance in making the analyses; to Dr. 

 Duggar for his suggestion of the problem and direction in re- 

 gard to growing the cultures; and to both for the use of their 

 laboratories in which the work was performed. 



It seems e\'ident, or at least hkely, that the great variation 

 in results and especially in the superabundant gains reported 

 by some investigators must be due to errors in distillation and 

 titration by the Kjeldahl method. These are avoided by the 

 Nesslerization and colorimetric features as employed in the 

 Folin method, and render a higher degree of accuracy possible. 



175 



THE PLANT WORLD, VOL. 19, NO. 7 

 JCLV, 1910 



