I08 TWENTV-FIVE YEARS OF CHEMICAL INVESTIGATION. 



of oats grown near Port Alfred, I expressed the view that the 

 soil on which the crop was grown would, if chemically examined, 

 show a corresponding deficiency. In course of time one analy- 

 sis after another demonstrated that such a lack of phosphates 

 prevailed, not only in the neighbourhood first mentioned, but 

 also in considerable areas of such districts as Willowvale, St. 

 Mark's. Queenstown, Cathcart, Komgha, Hopetown, Malmesbury, 

 Caledon, Bredasdorp, Swellendam, Riversdale, and George. Re- 

 search 'has shown that nitrifying bacteria need phosphates for 

 their development ; hence lack of phosphates is apt to go hand 

 in hand with retarded nitrification. Now phosphates are ex- 

 ceptionally needed by cereals — 'wheat, barley, oats, mealies, and 

 rye. Some of the chief grain soils being poor in phosphates, 

 these cereals cannot flourish, nitrogenous as they are, unless the 

 deficiency be artificially supplied, and therefore I had advocated 

 this course for many years.* But whatever I had said about 

 some Cape soils I had never declared Cape cereals to be as a 

 rule deficient in phosphates. One can argue from the latter to 

 the former, but it is not possible to argue from the former to 

 the latter. A poor soil may cause a deficient crop, but not 

 necessarily a crop deficient in one particular constituent. Never- 

 theless, the snowball that I had set rolling gathered weight as 

 it went, and so the first idea spread was that all the soils of 

 the Cape Colony were poor in phosphates, and the next that 

 the Colony's cereals exhibited the same deficiency. Accordingly, 

 when a disease appeared amongst the horses at the large military 

 establishment that existed some years back where the Govern- 

 ment Agricultural College at Grootfontein is now situated, the 

 malady was in a most sweeping manner attributed to deficiency 

 of phosphates in the Cape oats ; the stir thus occasioned is still 

 within general recollection. The accusations brought against the 

 Cape oats were quite kaleidoscopic in their variety: to the im- 

 aginary deficiency of phosphates was added (in imagination) 

 lack of lime ; then it was discovered that carbohydrates were 

 wanting, and lastly, that there was an undue proportion of husk 

 to grain. In the first instance a preliminary examination of 

 Algerian, South American, Australian, Canadian and Cape oats 

 was made in the Cape Town laboratory. In none of the five 

 was lime deficient, and the Algerian, South American, and Cape 

 oats contained a lower proportion of phosphoric oxide than 

 the other two, so that, if they sinned at all, they sinned to- 

 gether ; at the same time it was absurd to imagine that the 

 difiference in this respect could be sufficient to account for a 

 sudden onset of bone disease in cattle. 



The investigation of cereals having thus begun, it has be'^n 

 continued to the present day. The first extended series com- 

 prised fifty-two samples of oats grown in eleven separate Fiscal 

 Divisions of the Cape Province. The conclusions arrived at were 

 the following : — 



* See "Agricultural Soils of Cape Colony," pp. 45, 47, 72. 



