810 An Infection Experiment with Finger and Toe. 
contains 1*41 per cent, of lime, and cannot therefore be said to be 
deficient in this substance 
1 Organic matter and water of combination . . . 19 81 
Oxides of iron and alumina 6-14 
Lime .......... 1'41 
Alkalies, &c 1 01 
Insoluble matter and sand . ..... 7163 
10000 
1 containing nitrogen 0.36 
The results as tabulated show that w lie re no infected soil 
was applied every turnip was sound. Plots 2 and 2 a, getting 
diseased soil but no antiseptic, produced only a single sound root 
each. Three sound roots per plot were found when § ounce of 
quicklime were added, and the number steadily rises till we come to 
plots 6 and 6a, where only four roots were found to be diseased on 
each plot. This is not a perfect cure, but still it is a great advance 
on plots 2 and 2a, and the few roots which were touched by the 
disease were by no means badly affected. 
The column showing the weights indicates that from plot 2 
onwards the yield rises almost in proportion as the disease decreases. 
The only slight variation is in plots 3 and 4 with their duplicates, 
where the weight is greater on plot 3 with thirty-five diseased roots 
than on plot 4 with only twenty-eight. The reason for this is that 
the total number of roots (thirty-eight) on plot 3 is greater than on 
plot 4, which contained an average of only thirty-three, and, as a 
comparison of plots 1 and 2 will show, diseased roots, which are little 
else than a water-logged mass of putrid vegetable matter, weigh 
almost as much as sound ones. 
Plot 1, getting nothing, carried the maximum number of roots, 
namely forty-two ; a certain number of plants having been killed off 
on all the other plots, though fewest succumbed on that getting 
most lime. Plot 7, which was dressed with an extra large dose of 
soil, yielded only thirteen roots, and every one was diseased. 
Although in this experiment the disease was nearly cured by a 
comparatively small dressing of quicklime (less than 700 lb. per 
acre) it is not likely that this quantity will prove so effective in the 
ordinary field cultivation of the turnip crop. In these trials only 
a comparatively small proportion (about 6 tons per acre) of the 
total soil was diseased, and as the lime was thoroughly mixed with 
this diseased soil, the two became incorporated in a manner which 
could scarcely be secured in practical agriculture. But of one 
thing there can be no doubt — namely, that when lime is ground 
down to an impalpable powder, its spreading and mixing power is 
vastly increased ; and farmers who saw 5 cwt. per acre applied in 
the case of some of our field experiments, maintained that the 
visible effects, so far as whitening the land was concerned, were as 
