FROM THK AIR BY THE LEGUMINOS.E 45 



the soil employed for the inoculation of bacteria had never 

 borne lupins, and this leads him to say that "the fore- 

 going facts do not seem to accord with the opinion of 

 certain investigators. It is known that a number of bac- 

 teriologists admit the specificness of bacteria for different 

 Leguminos^ ; according to them each of the members of 

 this large family requires the presence of a special bacterium. 

 The question is far from being definitely settled ; it is 

 probable that these micro-organisms, under conditions of 

 which we have at present insufficient knowledge, have the 

 faculty of adapting themselves, by undergoing certain 

 changes, to the nitrogenous nourishment of different Legu- 

 minosai. Possibly it is to some phenomenon of this kind 

 that we must attribute, at Flahult, the influence of the 

 bacteria from peas on the development of lupins. There 

 are still a number of points to be cleared up in this 

 direction." 



Apart from experiments at Scandinavian stations, other 

 experiments have been carried out with nilragine in France 

 by M. Schribaux in 1896, and by MM. Dickson and Mal- 

 peaux in 1897. 



Harrison, Edwards, and Barlow obtained, in Canada, 

 as did also their French colleagues, very satisfactory results 

 with nitragine; Kellermann and Robinson, in the United 

 States, and Gerlach and Vogel, in Germany, are also satis- 

 fied with the use they have made of it. 



Another discover}' which also aroused a great deal of 

 interest was that of M. Caron, who, after isolating a bac- 

 terium from a lucerne, noticed it had the property of render- 

 ing the nitrogenous matter in the soil more assimilable. 

 Attempts were made to identify it bv comparing it with 

 known species, such as Bacillus mycoides, B. snbtilis, &c. 

 Professor Stoklasa considers the bacterium Clostri- 

 dium pasteurianum has the faculty of fixing nitrogen. 



The use of the preparation known as alinite was un- 

 successful and its manufacture was abandoned. 



