THE SOIL-WATER CULTURE TECHNIQUE 

 FOR GROWING ALGAE 



E. G. PRINGSHEIM 

 Cambridge University, Cambridge, England 



Introduction 



The soil-water technique for growing algae can be traced back 

 to Goeppert and Cohn's culture of Chara in aquaria with soil in 

 the bottom, more than a century ago (Colin, 1901). These famous 

 botanists, observing among their Chara cuttings many other algae 

 which they had not introduced, investigated them and so began 

 (1849) the Cryptogamenflora von Schlesien, one of the first 

 studies of its kind on the Continent. The innovation of my two 

 fellow citizens was not followed immediately, but was never 

 quite forgotten. I remember my professor, George Karsten, cul- 

 tivating diatoms in beakers with soil on which boiling water had 

 been poured. 



Another line of development began with Beijerinck's (1901) 

 observations of die algal flora growing in water to which differ- 

 ent amounts of soil had been added, leading to a preponderance 

 of one algal group or another, according to the quantity of the 

 solid substrate. By adding fibrin, Jacobsen (1910) obtained en- 

 richment cultures of polytrophic flagellates, a method subse- 

 quently adopted by Kniep and Buder and their co-workers in 

 Germany, (vd. Schreiber, 1925; Bolte, 1920), 



Repeating Jacobsen's experiments, I tried in 1919 to obtain 

 subcultures of a single species by first pasteurizing soil covered 

 with water and inoculating it. This was done by employing fine 

 pipettes, probably first used by Klebs. Individual cells were 

 drawn in under a microscope and blown out into test tubes con- 

 taining putrifiable matter, soil and water. By covering bits of 

 cheese or wheat grains with soil it was possible to restrict putre- 

 faction to the bottom of the tube and so provide cleaner cultures 



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