OCTOBEB 9, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



491 



Lankester, protesting against the digging up 

 of old names, suggested that an international 

 committee should be formed, not to draw up 

 a code of rules, hut " to produce an authorita- 

 tive list of names — once and for all — about 

 which no lawyer-like haggling should here- 

 after he permitted. Twelve years have 

 elapsed, and nothing of the kind has been 

 arranged. On the contrary; the various com- 

 mittees that have legislated since have in- 

 sisted on absolute priority, and we often read 

 that such a decision has been arrived at by 

 international agreement. It is not so, a great 

 body of zoologists in this country protest, and 

 hope that something will be done towards 

 carrying out the proposal here briefly set 

 forth, which seems to be the only proper step 

 to take in order to prevent the confusion with 

 which we are menaced. 



SPECIAL ARTICLES 

 SOME RESULTS OF A SERIES OP TESTS MADE BY 

 THE WIRE-BASKET METHOD FOR DETER- 

 MINING THE MANUEIAL RE- 

 QUIREMENTS OF SOILS 



A NUMBER of methods for determining the 

 manurial requirements of any given piece of 

 land have been proposed from time to time, 

 since it is well known that the mere chemical 

 analysis of a soil often fails to be of real 

 value in this connection. 



One of the most reliable methods consists 

 in making actual field tests with various fer- 

 tilizers applied in definite amounts to plots 

 of land of equal size, one or more of the plots 

 being left untreated to serve as a check. The 

 effect of the various manures applied is meas- 

 ured in terms of the crop harvested, and thus 

 the requirements of the soil for specific forms 

 of plant food is made evident. The chief ob- 

 jection to this method is that climatic con- 

 ditions are not always favorable for the best 

 results in any one season, in addition plant 

 diseases and insect pests may be active, hence 

 it often happens that it becomes necessary to 

 conduct the field experiments for a number of 

 years before definite conclusions can be 

 reached. 



During the year 1904, the Bureau of Soils 



of the United States Department of Agricul- 

 ture, devised a promising method for ascer- 

 taining the manurial requirements of soils. 

 This has been published as Circular 18, 

 Bureau of Soils, " The Wire-Basket Method 

 for Determining the Manurial Eequirements 

 of Soils." Briefly, it consists in treating 

 samples of the soils in question with definite 

 amounts of various fertilizers, and placing 

 the treated soil samples in wire-baskets which 

 are then coated with melted paraffin, and 

 growing wheat in the soil in these baskets 

 for short periods of time. The amount of water 

 transpired by and the green weight of the 

 plants are taken as indicative of the require- 

 ments of the soil for specific manurial con- 

 stituents. The value of the method consists 

 largely in the fact that results can be ob- 

 tained in a period of two or three weeks. 



In the early part of 1908 the writer was re- 

 quested to make a series of wire-basket tests 

 of soil samples from Boydton, Va. ; these 

 samples were taken on a farm, the property 

 of the Boydton Institute. The soil of this 

 region is characterized by one who has worked 

 it for a number of years, " as having tilling 

 qualities of about the average for a heavy 

 clay soil ... if plowed at the proper time, 

 subsoiled and kept stirred it presents no un- 

 usual difBculties." The two soils represented 

 by the following samples are undoubtedly of 

 the same character, and differ from each 

 other mainly through the different treatment 

 which each has received. 



A rough mechanical analysis of one of the 

 samples (a) by the beaker method, made in 

 this laboratory, gave the following result: 

 Sand 29 per cent., clay 18 per cent., silt 53 per 

 cent. A deficiency of humus was shown by 

 the small amount of volatile matter present 

 (4.Y6 per cent.) and by the absence of a dark 

 color in the soil. By actual determination the 

 amount of humus was found to be 1.40 per 

 cent. The gravel was found to be composed 

 mainly of quartz. 



Two samples of soil were used in making 

 these tests, designated as (a) and (j), having 

 the following history : (a) " East end of com 

 lot on the 300-aere tract. Cleared about 



