420 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [MAY 
A large increase in the nitrogen content of soils resulted from the addition of 
active bacterized peat as compared with controls of the same soils with sterile 
peat. It was found that an aqueous extract of bacterized peat supplied all of 
n 
stances that stimulate growth and enables the plants to utilize the normal 
mineral food constituents (NH,, P.O;, and K,O) more readily. It is supposed 
that in nature these growth-stimulating substances are supplied by the decayed 
organic matter of the soil. Experiments under way are reported to indicate 
that during the early stages of the growth of the embryo these substances are 
supplied from the seed. 
The results of these experiments with bacterized peat coordinate well with 
agricultural practice as observed by the reviewer in the Puget Sound region of 
the United States. In this region sphagnum bogs are readily converted into 
productive gardens by drainage and cultivation. This growth-stimulating 
substance (or substances) is soluble in water and in alcohol and is precipitated 
resemble in certain ways the accessory food bodies concerned in animal nutri- 
tion—GEorGE B. Ricc 
Some Ontario forest conditions.—In order to obtain some exact data 
regarding the extent and conditions of their forests, the Commission of Con- 
servation of Canada has had surveyed among other regions a portion of Ontario 
east of Georgian Bay and north of Lake Ontario. The area is within the basin 
of the Trent River and comprises some 1,345,000 acres, slightly rolling in char- 
acter, with a very thin soil over the recently glaciated granitic rocks of Archaean 
and Ordovician age. Howe* reports that two-thirds of this area was originally 
covered with a more or less pure white pine forest, the remainder being chiefly 
of hard wood type, in which beech and maple predominated. Now the virgin 
forest is practically gone, although on account of the poor quality of the scanty 
soil less than 12 per cent of the area has been farmed and little more is tillable. 
In discussing present conditions, four types of forest are recognized. 
(x) The pure coniferous forest with less than 10 per cent of other trees is made 
up of Pinus Strobus with a small quantity of Tsuga canadensis. It occupies less 
than 5 per cent of the woodland and is now hardly known in virgin condition. 
(2) The pure hard wood forest contains less than 10 per cent of coniferous trees 
and occupies the deeper soils, covering about 33 per cent of the forested area. 
It is composed of Acer saccharum, Fagus — Betula lutea, Tilia ameri- 
cana, and a few other minor species. From the predominance of the two 
species first named, both as mature trees and as hae ne it is evident that this 
** Howe, C. D., and Wuite, J. H., Trent watershed survey. Commission of 
Conservation: Gadade, pp. 156. ills. 16. ‘anne 3. 1913. 
