166 THE SPIRIT OF THE SOIL 



the maximum number of shoots from barley plants 

 manured in the ordinary way. With bacterized 

 peat, however, as many as eighteen have been 

 obtained. This means that instead of seven ears 

 there would be eighteen to every seed originally 

 planted." 



The Times, October 7, 1913, and May 21, 1914. 



" Agriculture's debt to science is already large, 

 but ' bacterized peat ' a new stimulant of plant 

 life produced at King's College, London, by Pro- 

 fessor W. B. Bottomley promises to make the debt 

 incalculably larger. 



" Tomatoes of quite a respectable size have been 

 grown from seeds set in pure sand, and watered with 

 an extract of this product. An eggcupful sprinkled 

 on the surface of the soil doubled the size of arum 

 lilies; carnations inoculated with eel-worm shook 

 off the pest with the aid of the ' peat,' and plants 

 of every kind grew more strongly, flowered more 

 profusely and with intensified colours, and quickly 

 became pot - bound through root - development. 

 Equally striking results have been obtained with 

 barley, wheat, and oats. 



" The evidence already obtained in regard to the 

 efficacy of this new manure is reassuring. It has 

 been subjected to severe tests in the open fields as 

 well as in the laboratory, and in every instance its 

 effect has been pronounced. Professor Bottomley's 

 estimate of its value is more than confirmed by 

 those who have co-operated with him in practical 

 experiments under different sets of conditions and 

 with different crops. Chemical analyses of the pre- 

 pared peat show that it contains over fifty times as 

 much available food material as farmyard manure- 

 that is to say, i ton of the prepared peat is superior 

 to 50 tons of farmyard manure. This is a bold 



