CHAPTER X 



THE TESTING OF HUMOGEN 



Difficulties in sciences dealing with living organisms Complexity 

 of biological problems Masking of cause and effect Nitro- 

 bacterine Adoption of the method by America Essential 

 to supply bacteria with food Nature's methods with the 

 embryo Comparison with bacterized peat Richness of 

 the peat in humus Response of the laboratory plants 

 Experiments at Kew General results of three years' work 

 Plant fertilizers used Details of improvement noted 

 Experiments at Tuckswood Farm : Tomatoes. Beans. 

 Potatoes A curious failure Need for early use of humogen 

 Mr. Weathers's experiments: Marguerites. Pyrethrums. 

 Forget-me-nots. Rhubarb. Cabbages Digging in of 

 humogen. 



THERE is one inherent difficulty attaching inevitably 

 to all sciences that have to deal with living organ- 

 isms the looseness of the causal relations. Hence 

 many of the volumes on philosophy. Hence the 

 fierceness of the fighting between those who insisted 

 on the doctrine of predestination and those who 

 championed the doctrine of free will. Hence, too, 

 the keen controversy that is waged even to-day on 

 such matters as vitalism in physiology; or, to go 

 from large issues to small, the campaign of the anti- 

 vivisectionists. Perhaps the latter question illus- 

 trates the argument best. Many people who know 

 that the injection of morphia into a cat violently 



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