A REMHW OF PUBLICATIONS ON AGRICULTURAL BOTANY 

 ISSUED IX FRANCE DURING 1896/ 



P^DMOND Gain, 

 Dean of the FacuUii of the University of Xancy {France). 



CULTURE. 



luvestigatioiis relatiug to the culture of plauts will be given in the 

 following order: The soil, fertilizers, and general and special culture. 



r/,(. .soii.— The importance of a knowledge of the soil from the stand- 

 point of culture is shown by the increased activity during 1890 in the 

 preparation of soil charts. This subject has been discussed in a 

 general way by A. Carnot,^ who explains the value of such work in 

 facilitating the application of commercial fertilizers and in saving the 

 farmers the necessity of a chemical analysis of each soil. Soil charts 

 have already been prepared for ten of the departments of France. L. 

 Magnien^ has issued for Cote d'Or charts showing the geological and 

 agronomic features, and giving the chemical and physical composition 

 of the soil and subsoil for each geological formation. The nitrogen, phos- 

 phoric acid, potash, magnesia, lime, etc., are also graphically shown. 

 Similar charts have been prepared for other departments.'* Sometimes 

 cheap editions of these charts are published which can be sold at a low 

 price, and in other cases two copies only are made by hand, one of which 

 is deposited in the oflBce of the mayor, where it is accessible to the pub- 

 lic, and the other is placed in the hands of the professor of agriculture 

 or other authorized person who explains it to all interested parties. 



Bernard,"^ of the agricultural station of Clunj^, has made a new clas- 

 sification of arable soils based upon what he terms "the cube of con- 

 stitution and the cube of fertility." The methods employed in the 

 preparation of these charts are very variable, and there is need of more 

 uniformity in this work. Flahault" has jmblished a chart of France, 

 showing the geographical distribution of agricultural and other plants, 

 that is useful in determining the plants adapted to definite regions. 

 Schlossing' has made a study of the amount of nitrates in runuiug 

 water and in drainage water. The different streams of a given drainage 

 basin have about the same nitrogen content. The proportion of nitro- 

 gen reaches the maximum after a prolonged period of low temperature 

 which checks the growth of aquatic plants and the flow of the water. 



' Continued from p. 853. 



^ Rev. g6u. 8ci. pur. et appl., 1896, Sept. .30, p. 766. 



2 Assoc. Fr. Av. Sci., Congrc-s dc Carthage, 1896, pp. 55, 177. 



* Brochure presented at Congres de Carthage, 1896. 



'^Brochure G^ologie agr. et cartes agron., 1896. 



^ Ann. Geographie, Paris : Colins, 1896. 



' Compt. Kend., 122 (1896), pp. 699, 824 (E. S, R., 7, p. 848), 

 940 



