• 403 Scientific Agriculture, 



Council and from the Board of Agriculture, and it has issued the above report for 

 1905, heralded by some startling preliminary trumpets in the Scottish Press. Briefly 

 speaking Mr. Jamieson claims to have " discovered " " that plants generally absorb 

 free nitrogen directly from the air, and transform it into albumen." He proposes to 

 wipe out agricultural science between the dates of De Saussure and himself, writing, 

 indeed, with a curious resemblance to the amateur speculations of sixty years ago. 



Mr. Jamieson begins by demolishing, to his own satisfaction, the theory that 

 leguminous plants fix nitrogen by the agency of bacteria, and the quality of his 

 argument may be gauged from the following passage :— " It should be borne in mind, 

 also, that bacteria were never proved to be present. The small particles found in 

 the tubercles were merely assumed to be bacteria." What are we to say to a man 

 who proposes to dismiss the nineteen years' work of some scores of investigators in 

 every country by denying a fact he could demonstrate to himself at any moment 

 had he the most elementary acquaintance with the manipulation of bacteria ? But 

 no ; Mr. Jamieson prefers to speculate on his own, without even reading up the 

 subject. There is a curious footnote on p. 29 which, we imagine, is meant to display 

 Mr. Jamieson's acquaintance with the literature of nitrogen fixation ; a list of 

 authorities is given, equally amazing as regards either its inclusions, its omissions, or 

 its spellings of proper names. Beyex-inck appears variously as Burginck and 

 Beirjerenck. But when we leave Mr. Jamieson's criticism and turn to his construc- 

 tive work the result is even more amazing. He takes an ordinary plant, spurrey, for 

 example, and finds certain hairs on the leaves. To ascertain the purpose of these 

 hairs he applies to them iodine or some other reagent capable of staining proteid. 

 He finds that the tips of these hairs, which are at first empty and then become green 

 with chlorophyll, give later a reaction for albumen, which disappears again as the 

 hairs age. ' ' If the formation of albumen takes place in the tip of this hair, one 

 would expect to find its absence in the early stage, its presence in the later or 

 active stage, its discharge through the channels and round the cells of the plant, 

 and its possible absence in the latest stages— and this is what has actually been 

 found." 



"The evidence that nitrogen is absorbed by these tips, and is there fixed and 

 manufactured into albumen, is thus as complete as could well be desired." ''The 

 direct absorption of nitrogen, and its direct fixation as albumen, thus seems .demon- 

 strated even more satisfactorily than is possible by chemical analysis," and none, 

 accordingly, is attempted. " 'Tis safer so," as the American poet puts it. Mr. 

 Jamieson does not bring forward a single experiment to demonstrate that nitrogen 

 has been fixed by any of his plants ; this fundamental fact (?) he assumes. 



The fact that many investigators like Boussingault and Lawes and Gilbert 

 found no fixation of nitrogen during the growth of plants Mr. Jamieson dismisses 

 on the ground that the plants under experiment had not attained their normal 

 vigour, forgetting that Lawes and Gilbert had dealt with and dismissed this very 

 point in their field experiments upon root crops. Mr. Jamieson even argues 

 that the growth of the leafy turnip crop with small or non nitrogenous dressings 

 implies that the crop has drawn its nitrogen from the atmosphere, whereas this is 

 the standard example in the lecture-room of how the great reserves of nitrogen in 

 the soil can be made to feed the plant if nitrification be promoted by the frequent 

 cultivations and the high soil temperatures which characterise the growth of the 

 turnip crop. 



It i#on this sort of foundation that Mr. Jamieson proposes to re-build the 

 whole edifice of agricultural science ; really the thing would be amusing were it not 

 so dangerous and discreditable to the cause of scientific research. Mr. Jamieson has 

 a following. Putting aside his official backing, and the dukes, earls, and marquises 



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