364 



STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



never be found by the Kemy method, though it must certainly be based 

 upon the character of the soils or of their bacteria. Another experi- 

 ment carried on three months before the one described above, gave the 

 same relations, though the rapidity of fermentation was higher in these 

 midsummer soils. (Fig. 13). 



AMMONIA PRODUCTION IN PEPTONE SOLUTION BY SOILS. 



After two days the muck culture has nearly twice as much ammonia 

 as the loam culture, after three days they are alike, after six days the 

 loam is about 20% higher than the muck. 



Whether this remarkable behavior in the ammonification by loam and 

 muck is due to a difference in the specific flora or to chemical or physical 

 qualities of the soil, I cannot say, but such differences of the soil should 

 not be neglected if we are testing the bacterial qualities of our soils in 

 the manner described. 



A very remarkable feature of these last cui'ves is the long, straight 

 line instead of the nicely curving forms of the previous fermentation 

 curves. We find these curves often occurring in soil fermentations. The 

 most striking example is perhaps a series of analyses showing the acid 



Fig. 13. 



Ammonia Production hij Three Soils in Peptone Solutio)i. 



