New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 189 



Table IV. — Bacterial Counts op Potted Soil. 

 Samples taken at Geneva, N. Y., 1913-14. 



* Unfrozen. 



conclusively that the increase in germ content could not have been 

 due to this cause. 



RESULTS OF FIELD WORK. 



Dunkirk silty clay loam. — The analyses of this soil (the same 

 type as used in the pot experiments) were made during three succes- 

 sive winters; but only the results secured in 1913-14 have sufficient 

 meaning to justify publication in detail. During 1911-12 no con- 

 stant temperature was available for use in the incubation of the 

 plates, a condition which rendered the results unreliable. Seven 

 samples of frozen soil were taken during that winter, of which 

 two showed between thirty-five and forty million bacteria per gram, 

 counts which are much higher than ordinarily obtained from this 

 soil when in an unfrozen condition. In the winter of 1912-13 the 

 soil was unfrozen except for two short periods, and only six samples 

 were taken, of which only two were obtained as much as two weeks 

 after a freeze. One of these two counts reached the striking figure 

 of 55,000,000 bacteria per gram. 



