SCII ULTZENSTEIIT— NUTRITIVE CONSTITUENTS OF WATER. 113 



XXIII. On the Nutritive Constituents of Water. 

 By Professor ScnuLZ-ScnuLTZENSTEiN *. 



[The memoir, of which the present translation forms a second 

 part, is entitled " On the Nutritive Properties of "Water and 

 Artificial Irrigation in Horticulture and Agriculture." A short 

 abstract was given in the ' Gardener's Chronicle,' January 1854, 

 but the views it entertains are so important, that a translation of 

 the whole can scarcely be unacceptable to the Society.] 



In the first division of this treatise (Tr. Pruss. Hort. Soc, 

 vol. xx. part 2. p. 354), I have spoken historically of irrigation as 

 practised in the culture of plants, and have shown, from the his- 

 torical facts of cultivation, in contradiction to the theory of their 

 nourishment by means of carbonic acid derived from the air (as 

 first stated by Ingenhousz, in his treatise " On the Nourishment of 

 Plants and Fertility of the Soil," and afterwards by Senebier in 

 his ' Physiologie Yegetale,' by Th. de Saussure in his ' Eecherches 

 Chimiques sur la Vegetation,' and recently reproduced by our 

 countryman Liebig, in opposition to the notion of the nourish- 

 ment of plants being derived from the soil) , that the nutritive con- 

 stituents are for the most part dissolved in water, that water is 

 the only vehicle of nutriment, and that the theory of nourishment 

 by means of air is in the most decided opposition to all practical 

 experience in horticulture and agriculture, and more especially to 

 the effects of manure on growth. I now purpose to show that the 

 nutritious constituents of plants are separated from the soil by 

 means of water, and that the water contained in the soil, and that 

 of springs and wells, is loaded not merely with saline, but more 

 especially with the humous elements of the ground, and that the 

 humous organic constituents dissolved in water furnish the true 

 nutriment. Liebig promulgated the notion that the waters of 

 springs and wells contain no organic constituents, or, at least, 

 none worth mentioning, and adduced the Selter-water as a proof, 

 which, like many waters springing from deeper primitive forma- 

 tions, seldom contains humous or bituminous matter in solution ; 

 but the consequent conclusion that all other spring- and pump- 



* Translated from the German in vol. xxi. part 34 of the Transactions of the 

 Horticultural Society of the Prussian States. 



This translation was prepared in part some years since by the editor, at the 

 request of Dr. Lindley, for the former series of the Journal of the Horticultural 

 Society of London, but was not published in consequence of its discontinuance. 

 It is to be expressly understood that the translator is not responsible for any of 

 the opinions expressed, much less for the occasionally somewhat severe 

 criticisms. 



TOL. I. I 



