128 THE BOTANICAL MAGAZINE. [Voi. xxv. No. 292. 



part of that nitrogen will pass into an unavailable form, part- 

 ly in the form of bacteria and animals, partly in insoluble 

 humus compounds. In the latter case, oxidizing media, as 

 chloride of lime or bleaching powder and potassium permanga- 

 nate might liberate a part of that nitrogen as ammonia, when a 

 part of the carbon is oxidized. For this reason I have applied 

 in my experiment not only bisulphide of carbon, but for com- 

 parison also potassium permanganate. The writer also intends 

 to apply next year also chloride of lime. 



The soil chosen for my experiment was a loamy humus and 

 yielded on analysis the following figures, when analysed in the 

 usual way: 



Moisture 3.50 



Loss on ignition . . ... . . 10.08 



Humus 14.90 



Nitrogen 0.30 



Insoluble in hot HCl. ..... 75.05 



Silica soluble in hot HCl 0.43 



Silica soluble in Nao CO3 . . . . 8.58 



Sum of Silica 9.01 



AI2O3 6.16 



FesOs ... 2.01 



FeO 0.45 



MnsOg 0,14 



CaO 1.24 



MgO 0.91 



K2O 0.09 



Na20 0.23 



P2O, 0.12 



SO3 0.09 



rSi02 ..... 4.42 



Ho SO4 extract I FcaOa \ 1^4 



IAI2O3 } • • • • ^-^^ 



In a second trial the available amounts of lime and Mag- 



