JOURNAL 



- ■ i ■■ ■ 



OF THE 



Royal Hortioultueal Society. 



Vol. XXXVI. 1910. 

 Part I. 



THE ADAPTATION OF THE PLANT TO THE SOIL. (I.) 

 By A. D. Hall, M.A., F,R.S. 

 [Being the third Masters Lecture, delivered February 22, 1910.] 



The subject which I have chosen for the two " Masters Lectures " 

 which I sliaU have the honour of dehvering before you is the adapta- 

 tion of the phint to the soil, .and by that ambiguous title I mean 

 somewhat as follows : In Nature we are always finding plants 

 that possess a very restricted range, being confined entirely to one 

 limited piece of country, such as a mountain range, or even a par- 

 ticular rock area in that range, from which they do not stray into the 

 neighbouring country. In the same way we find that certain plants 

 will grow very well in some gardens, but fail entirely in others. In 

 many cases we can see that those successes or failures are not due 

 to climate in its wide sense, but depend upon the character of the 

 soil. What I wish to discuss in these lectures is the nature of the 

 factors which we can suppose to be in operation. I have chosen this 

 subject partly for its intrinsic interest, as opening up some of the most 

 fundamental questions of plant nutrition; partly for its practical im- 

 portance to the gardener ; but also because the experimental work which 

 I am going to take as a text occupied for some time the attention of 

 that distinguished botanist, the late Dr. Masters, in whose honour these 

 lectures were founded. 



At the experimental station at Rothamsted a piece of old grass- 

 land was in 1856 divided into plots, to each of which a different 

 manure was applied. The land was afterwards cut for hay, as it has 

 been every year since, and dinhig the whole of the half-century that 

 has elapsed since the experiinent began the same kind of manure 

 has been applied year by year to the same plot. Early in the history 



VOL. XXXVI. B 



