NOTES AND ABSTRACTS. 



643 



For plants in pots weak solutions may be used in doses of not more 

 than one gramme or one and a half grammes to the litre of water. 

 Water plants in the sun every ten days, and plants in the shade once a 

 month. Nitrate of soda is recommended for lawns, applied at the rate 

 of ten grammes to the square metre every month, from the month of 

 April.— M. L. H. 



Sodium Cyanide for Fumig-ation Purposes, Value of. By 



R. S. Woglum (Jour. Econ. Entom., iii., pt. i., pp. 85-88; Feb. 1910). 

 — Experiments show that a high grade sodium cyanide is as effective in 

 fumigating against insect pests as a high grade potassium cyanide. As 

 a given weight of high grade sodium cyanide produces more gas than 

 a high grade potassium cyanide (IJ — 1) and its price per lb. is the 

 same, the former is the cheaper. The presence of sodium chloride in 

 the cyanide is detrimental to its use for fumigation purposes, and a 

 sample containing over 1 per cent, of sodium chloride should be 

 rejected. — F. J. C. 



Soil Physics, Studies of. By W. Heber Green and G. A. Ampt 

 {Jour. Agr. Sci., iv., pt. 1; pp. 1-24; May 1911). — A highly technical 

 paper dealing with the important questions of permeability and capillarity 

 in soils. The authors define the constants of these two properties and 

 measure the movements of air and water through three types of soil. 

 They regard these measurements as of greater importance than the 

 determination of the size of the soil particles as made in ordinary 

 mechanical analysis, and consider that the latter should be replaced by 

 the former. The soils used in the experiments were not natural soils 

 in situ, but were soils in the condition usually sent for analysis. 



F. J. C. 



Soil, Storing- Moisture in the. By W. W. Burr (U.S.A. Exp. 



Stn., Nebraska, Bull. 114; May 1910; 13 charts, 4 figs.).— The west 

 of this State frequently suffers from insufficient rainfall, and it is 

 believed that some modification of the system of alternate cropping and 

 summer tilling, as practised in the dry-farming regions of the Western 

 States will prove the solution of the problem of profitable crop- 

 production. Soils have been sampled to a depth of fifteen feet, and 

 the writer thinks that the water content of the lower soil is affected 

 by cultivation and cropping to at least that depth (p. 14). — A. P. 



Soils, The Development of Marsh. By A. E. Whitson and 



F. J. Sievers (U.S.A. Exp. Stn., Wisconsin, Bull. 205; Feb. 1911; 

 7 figs.). — There are nearly three million acres of marshes in this 

 State, and, though some of them are as much as fifty thousand 

 j acres or more in extent, this kind of land is so widely distributed that 

 ' thousands of farms contain a small area of it. The I'ising prices of 

 farm lands make it desirable to develop these lands to the greatest 

 possible extent. It is essential to recognize that important differences 

 exist in the character of these marsh soils, mainly owing to the 



