19G MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



As to the results of these last experiments, as has been already 

 stated, the}' fully confirmed those obtained by lioussingault, and 

 that renowned investigator could accept them wilhf)ut an}* change 

 of his own views. And one of the most intcrestini!; features of 

 these results was that, in Ville's iron-frumed glazed case, they 

 were precisely the same as under the glass shades used in the 

 English experiments — there was a complete failure to get, not 

 merely the large gains of nitrogen that Ville reported, but any 

 gains at all. There were twelve of these shades, each nine inches 

 in diameter and forty inches high, and with several plants under it, 

 standing in a row, flanked by Ville's case. In order to show 

 that all the necessarj' conditions for successful plant growth, except 

 a supply of combined nitrogen, were fulfilled under these shades, 

 several seeds were planted in a pot of garden soil, and put under 

 one of them, and subjected to the same treatment during growth 

 as the plants under the other shades ; the growth of these plants 

 from these seeds was as healthy and normal as could be expected 

 where they were so much crowded, and it was conclusively shown 

 that nothing was lacking but room for their free development. 



Still some skeptics might sa}' that if j'ou should only allow a 

 better chance to the plant, by giving it a vigorous start in the 

 beginning, it might then be able to do what it could not do if 

 starved and stunted from the outset in a barren soil. Tn order to 

 meet such a criticism, the plants under some of the shades were 

 supplied with a known quantity of ammonia salts, containing a 

 known quantity of nitrogen, several times during the season ; but, 

 although these plants grew more vigorously than those which 

 received no other nitrogen than that contained in the seed planted, 

 there was yet no gain of nitrogen over and above what was thus 

 supplied. 



The question now naturally arises, How did Ville get such 

 results, and especially- how did he succeed in convincing the com- 

 mittee of the French Academy that his results were correct, when 

 conducting another experiment under their watchful inspection? 

 How is it possible that the same apparatus should have yielded 

 one result in Paris and another at liothamstead in England? 

 Can it be possible that Parisian nitrogen is any more easily 

 assimilable than English nitrogen? I believe that his first results 

 were the natural consequences of a leak into his apparatus, some- 

 how and somewhere, of combined nitrogen in some form ; and I 



