THE AIMS AND TENDENCIES OE THE GERMAN AGRICUL- 

 TURAL EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 1 



Prof. M. Maercker, Ph. D., 

 Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station at Halle, Germany. 



SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATIONS. 



The agricultural experiment stations should extend our knowledge of 

 the principles underlying agriculture by conducting scientific investiga- 

 tions. These investigations should extend to the nutrition of agri- 

 cultural plants and domestic animals. The fundamental investigations 

 carried on since the fifties on plant nutrition have given us quite defi- 

 nite knowledge. From the water and sand cultures of Sachs, Knop, 

 Nobbe, Hellriegel, and others we know in general the separate elements 

 of plant food and the proportions in which they should be used; and 

 from this a rational basis for manuring agricultural plants has been 

 deduced. 



But work still remains to be done in this field. Although we know 

 what fertilizing constituents are used by plants, we are far from know- 

 ing what part each plays in the plant economy and what relation it 

 bears to the formation and building up of the separate constituents of 

 the plant. In this connection reference may be made to the latest 

 investigations of Hellriegel on the relation of potash to the formation 

 of sugar in the sugar beet. In spite of the magnificent results of these 

 investigations, they did not completely solve the problem. The role of 

 lime and magnesia in the growth of plants is likewise not definitely 

 known and requires further investigation. Furthermore, according to 

 recent investigations by Hellriegel and Wilfarth, we must assume that 

 a certain replacement of potash by soda may take place in plants. 

 This may be of extensive practical interest, since the crude Stassfurt 

 potash salts, containing soda, would be more economical to use than 

 the pure potash salts. 



There are many similar questions in this line. Hence investigations 

 by methods of pure culture in water and in sand must be continued by 

 experiment stations in the near future, even though the work be con- 

 fined to only a few stations. 



The classic investigations of Hellriegel have given us an entirely 

 new point of view as to the nutrition of leguminous plants. We know 



1 Continued from page 113. 



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