CHAPTER XI 



THE PREPARATION OF HUMOGEN 



mportance of cost and availability of humogen The works at 

 Greenford Green Railway facilities The raw material 

 Incubating with humating organisms Sterilizing the peat 

 Inoculation with Nitrogen-fixing organisms New system 

 of sterilization Project for rapid drying Possibilities of 

 extension Price as compared with manure. 



IN the course of the discussion on a paper read by 

 Professor Bottomley before the Royal Society of 

 Arts on "The Bacterial Treatment of Peat/' Dr. 

 J. A. Voelcker said that from a practical point of 

 view the cost of the material was paramount, and he 

 asked the question whether there was any likelihood 

 of the material being put on the market in an acces- 

 sible form. In the eighteen months which have 

 elapsed since the date of the reading of that paper, 

 the situation as regards the bacterized peat has 

 changed very materially. Two seasons of experi- 

 ments have confirmed the results that were then 

 announced, and the peat is already being manu- 

 factured on an experimental scale. While the whole 

 story of soil inoculation and of the auximones is 

 keenly interesting for its own sake, in so far as it 

 throws fresh light on the nature and mechanism 

 of plant growth, from the national standpoint at 

 any rate, and from that of the practical grower, the 



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