l6o BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



Soil conditions which are absolutely fatal to nitrification 

 are an acid soil, a soil lacking in organic matter containing 

 nitrogen, a wet, cold, water-logged soil and soils deficient in 

 nitrifying bacteria. As a rule, however, the bacteria are 

 present if the other conditions are favorable. If conditions 

 are not favorable for the work of the bacteria which are 

 beneficial, then certain other organisms begin their work and 

 actually set free nitrogen which may already be in the soil and 

 in setting it free it escapes into the air as free nitrogen and is 

 lost to us as a plant food. 



Farmers as a rule are interested in this problem which has 

 to do with dollars and cents. There are few problems which 

 present possibilities of more immediate returns for the study 

 involved than this problem which is the formation of nitrates 

 in the soil. If the price of nitrogen in commercial fertilizer 

 continues to advance for the next few years as it has in the 

 past year, it will be absolutely necessary for us to seek some 

 other sources of nitrogen as plant food, and in seeking these 

 other sources, we will give more attention to the preservation 

 and use of farm manures, and we will seek to learn means by 

 which every field may be brought into condition so that it 

 should be in itself a niter bed, that is proper condition 

 furnished by which organic matter in the soil containing 

 nitrogen shall break down or decompose and in this decomposi- 

 tion give up its nitrogen for the formation of nitrates. 



DISCUSSION. 



The President. When hauling out manure and throwing 

 it into little piles, we are told that the man who does that would 

 save money and save nitrogen if he would hire some one to 

 spread it out on the field at once, or do it himself. Will you 

 tell us why that is? 



Mr. Clinton. There are some people in the world called 

 busybodies. There were some organisms in those manure 

 piles that are busybodies. Fertilizer busybodies. They were 

 bacteria, and they were working in there producing fermenta- 

 tion. As the result of the production of that fermentation 

 ammonia is liberated and sent ofif into the air. If that manure 



