6 DISEASE IN PLANTS. 



from chemical principles what might be supposed 

 to occur in it ; and although future researches 

 showed that even so careful an investigator 

 solved a problem of first importance viz. the 

 question of the fixation of free nitrogen the 

 wrong way, it will be found that so far as he did 

 go his conclusions were sound, and well calculated 

 to inspire the confidence with which the world 

 received them. As we are here concerned more 

 especially with the botany of agriculture, however, 

 it is unnecessary to dwell longer on these matters, 

 or on the similar and even more extensive 

 experiments, of world-wide reputation, carried on 

 for so many years, and still being carried on 

 under the liberal auspices of Sir John Lawes, at 

 Rothamsted. Moreover it may be necessary to 

 return to some of these points later on. 



Notes to Chapter I. 



The reader will find a further general account of these 

 matters in Sachs' Lectures o?i the Physiology of Plants^ 

 especially Lectures I. and XIL, Engl, ed., Oxford, 1887. He 

 may then proceed to Pfeffer's Physiology of Plafits, Engl, 

 ed., 1899, chapter L, and to the account of the history of 

 the subject in Sachs' History of Botany, Oxford, 1890, 

 especially pp. 359-375 and 445-524. References to more 

 special literature will be found in Pfefifer. 



