20 
rRESIDENT's ADDRESS. 
the most careful attention, if the pursuit of agriculture is to he 
made profitable. 
It seems almost like a romance, hut it is a fact, that the present 
frightful depression in the Wheat market is caused by the activity 
of this minute organism of •which I have been speaking. The 
rich prairie soils of America are full of nitrates, accumulated 
throughout a long series of years, ■while they have been lying 
fallow at a convenient temperature, so that now it is only 
necessary to tickle them witli the hoe or plough, and throw in 
the seed, to ensure a liberal return for many years. While here, 
on our hard-worked soils, exhausted by continuous cropping, and 
often rendered sterile by unfavourable seasons, the farmer has to 
put his hand into his pocket to buy ready-formed nitrates, or 
other nitrogenous materials, in order to get a crop. 
In conclusion, it is somewhat unsatisfactory to have to state that 
the peculiar organism upon which the j:)rocess of nitrification 
depends has not been clearly isolated, that is to say, the evidence 
is not irrefragable. It is true the two gentlemen previously 
mentioned by me, Messrs. Schldsing and Miintz, claim to have 
separated it, and have described it ; hut Mr. Warington states 
that the cultivations made by him, and examined by a practised 
microscopist, failed to show Bacilli ; but they appeared to contain 
a Micro-coccus. On the other hand. Professor Bay Lankester 
states that the cultivations sent to him by IMr. Warington 
contained nothing else than Bacilli. The evidence, so far as 
England is concerned, is therefore not clear as to the actual 
identity of the organism ; but investigations are still actively going 
on, and will no doubt in time lead to a more definite result. 
