8 TRANSACTIONS AND PIIOCEEDINGS OF THE [Skss. lxi. 



the time, but it did not silence Ville. He published a new 

 edition of his researches in 1867. After having repeated 

 many of his former experiments, and found them accurate, 

 he was able, from his added experience, to see how 

 Boussingault's method could not end in anything but failure. 

 The plants, he maintained, could never be anything but 

 sickly, misthriven objects under the conditions of growth 

 he imposed on them, and he pointed out that on account 

 of these conditions the puny plants were not allowed to 

 arrive at that stage of development when it was possible 

 for them to utilise the free nitrogen of the air. 



In his experiments he gave the plants sufficient soil to 

 enable their roots to -grow, and he supplied them with a 

 certain small amount of nitrate of soda, just enough to tide 

 them over their childhood, so to speak, but not enough to 

 pamper them and make them lazy in the vigour of their 

 youth. He held the view that plants, like other beings of 

 a higher type, when they found within their reach two 

 sources of nourishment, took the one that was easiest 

 got at; so that if a plant found nitrogenous food among its 

 roots it absorbed that, and did not exercise its power of 

 taking, with more difficulty, its nitrogen from the air. J)y 

 careful experiment he discovered how much nitrate of 

 soda was needed to give his plants a good start, and 

 he stopped there, and let them find the rest of their 

 nitrogenous food in the free nitrogen of the air he supplied 

 to them. 



So far as I can discover, no particular attention was given 

 to Ville's further puljlication, and almost nobody had any 

 confidence in his conclusions. Happening to be in Paris 

 just twenty years ago, I paid a visit to the Experiment 

 Station at Join ville, and knowing it was a public institu- 

 tion, I gave no notice of my coming. Unfortunately I did 

 not get access to the grounds, as M. Ville was from home, 

 but the inquiries I made regarding the work carried on 

 there among some leading scientists in Paris were usually 

 answered by that characteristic shrug of the shoulders with 

 which our neighbours across the Channel are able to convey 

 a wonderful amount of tacit information. It was quite 

 evident that he was not regarded by the Parisian scientists 

 as one of tlieir set. 



