rents of electricity may break up the more complex 

 compounds in the soil into simpler ones, upon 

 which the roots of plants can feed. 



Spechnew found that one hundred pounds of 

 earth, subjected to the electric current for a certain 

 length of time, contained one ounce of soluble 

 material, while a similar quantity of the same kind 

 of earth not so treated contained but half an ounce. 



Some observers believe that electricity decom- 

 poses the constituents of the soil much as quick- 

 lime does, and it is largely on this account that 

 plants are more richly fed in electrified earth. 

 Others think that, in some manner, under the elec- 

 tric influence, nitrogen from the air combines with 

 some other substances in the soil, making com- 

 pounds which are readily absorbed by roots of 

 plants. A recent experimenter claims that the 

 particles of electrified earth are set into molecular 

 vibration, thus loosening the earth. Faraday, in 

 his researches many years ago, declared that plants 

 requiring much nitrogen for their development 

 would be benefited by being grown in electrified 

 earth. 



Let us consider how uncombined nitrogen in the 

 soil, carried there by the water, may be given to 

 the roots of plants without first being formed into 

 compounds. We will state the case of one of the 

 legumenous plants, which plants find nitrogen so 

 very necessary to their existence. It is well known 

 that many of the legumes can sustain themselves in 

 soils too poor in nitrogenous compounds to support 

 other plants. They seem to do so by feeding 



