SOILS FERTILIZERS. 219 



A solid diagram of four dimensions, with a triangle as a base, from which 

 any possible combination of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash may be ob- 

 tained is described. " The corners of the triangular base represent the elements 

 and the fourth dimension represents the total quantity of all the elements ap- 

 plied. Systematic tests of fertilizers may be made by selecting points on the 

 triangular diagram. Tables are given showing a plan for comparing the relative 

 value of different forms of nitrogen, potash, and phosphoric acid in a three 

 years' rotation." 



The determination of availability of nitrogenous fertilizers in various 

 California soil types by their nitrinability, C. B. Lipman and P. S. Burgess 

 {Califoniia Sta. Bui. 260 {1915), pp. 107-127). — Laboratory experiments with 

 29 soil types, from 20 counties in California, showing wide variations in texture 

 and chemical and biological composition and representing a number of the im- 

 portant soil regions of the State, are reported, the purpose of which was to 

 determine the amount of nitrate produced in one month at a constant tem- 

 perature of 82 to 86° P. from 1 gm. of each of 14 nitrogenous fertilizers thor- 

 oughly mixed with 100-gm. portions of soil. The fertilizers used were dried 

 blood, high-gi'ade tankage, steamed bone meal, fish guano, cotton-seed meal, 

 calcium cyanamid, sulphate of ammonia, goat manure, garbage tankage, apple 

 pomace, barnyard manure, green alfalfa, green kelp (Macrocystis), and .sewage 

 sludge. 



It was found that the most ready and most economical transformation of 

 nitrogen into nitrate occurred in the soils with the so-called low-grade forms of 

 nitrogen fertilizers, like cotton-seed meal, steamed bone meal, goat manure, 

 garbage tankage, and sewage sludge. The so-called high-grade forms of nitro- 

 gen, like those of dried blood, high-grade tankage, and fish guano, v.-ere not 

 well suited to most of the arid soils, dried blood giving the poorest results, 

 tankage next, and fish guano last. " Whenever soils contain a good supply of 

 organic material and the reaction is alkaline, good results may be expected 

 from these three materials, however." 



Ammonium sulphate was the most readily available of the two inorganic 

 forms of nitrogen tested, but is classed with the low-grade nitrogenous fer- 

 tilizers in this respect. 



A preliminary report of greenhouse experiments is also included, in which 

 the soils were used in larger quantities and alfalfa, barnyard manure, and kelp 

 nitrogen used for the nitrifiable material. With one exception, the barnyard 

 manure nitrogen and kelp nitrogen not only gave no increase of nitrates in 

 either the three or seven months' incubation period, but actually induced con- 

 siderable loss of nitrate from the soil's original content thereof. Alfalfa nitro- 

 gen, on the other hand, nitrified in all the soils, though much better in some 

 than in others. 



A new form of garbage tankage and also apple pomace were tested in three 

 typical soils. " The latter only induced losses of nitrogen from the soils with 

 which it was tested, but the former gave results which place it in the same 

 class with steamed bone meal, cotton-seed meal, sludge from septic tanks, and 

 goat manure." 



These results are taken to indicate that present practice in the use of nitro- 

 genous fertilizers on the soils of the State must be changed and recommenda- 

 tions for their practical use are given. 



Calcium cyanamid as a retarder of denitrification, C. Lumia {Atti R. Accad. 

 Lincei, Rend. CI. Sci. Fis., Mat. e Nat., 5. set:, 23 (1914), II, No. 12, pp. 659-662, 

 fig. 1; abs. in Chem. Abs., 9 (1915), No. 15, p. 2120). — Experiments in which 

 calcium cyanamid was added in amounts varying from 1.5 to 2.5 per cent to 

 20 cc. of a nutritive solution almost identical with the Giltay solution and 



