December i , 
9 *-] 
)f oa agriculturist. 
425 
that nitrogen is one of the first elements in the soil 
to be used up ; that, of all the fertilizing elements, 
nitrogen is and always has been the most expensive. 
THE SPECIFIC ACTION OF KITROOEN UPON PLANTS. 
47 . The influence of nitrogen in its various forms 
upon plant growth is shown by at least three strik- 
ing effects. 
First. — The growth of stems and loaves Is greatly 
promoted, while that of buds and flowers is retarded. 
Ordinarily, moat plants, at a certain period of growth, 
cease to produce new branches and loliago, or to in- 
crease those already formed, and commence to 
produce flowers and feuita, whereby the species may 
be perpetuated. If a plant is provided with as much 
available nitrogen as it can use just at the time it 
begins to flower, the formation of flowers may be 
checked, while the activity of growth is transferred 
back to and renewed in stems and leaves, which take 
on a now vigor and multiply with remarkable lux- 
uriance. Should flowers bo produced under these 
circmnstances, they are sterile and xiroduce no seed. 
Second. — The effect of nitrogen upon plants is to 
deepen the color of the foliage, which is a sign of in- 
creased vegetative ootivity and health. 
Third. — The effect of nitrogen is to increase, in a 
very marked degree, the relative proportion of nitro- 
gen in the plant. 
LOSS or NIlnOOEN compoonps. 
45. Since ammonia compounds and nitrates dis- 
solve easily in water, is there not danger of their 
being carried away in drainage water from the upper 
soil out of roach of the plant ? 
Experiments have been made to settle the question, 
and results Indicate that ammonia compounds are 
largely retained in the soil. Nitrates ore apt to bo 
wasoed out and lost in the case of bare fallow land; 
but when the soil is covered with vegetation there is 
little or no loss, for the reason that the roots of growing 
plants absorb nitrogen voryroadiiy. Some nitrogen is 
also lost by organic matter in the process of decay, 
escaping into the air as free nitrogen. 
These losses of nitrogen oio, to some extent, 
replaced naturally by means of the nitric acid and 
ammonia dissolved by the rain and dew, also by 
organic matter decaying at the surface of the soil, 
and also by conversion of the free nitrogen of 
the air into some form which the plant can toko up 
and use. These natural additions of nitrogen do 
not usually make good on tho form the losses, and 
in time the nitrogen becomes inauffleient to produce 
paying crops without the addition of nitrogenous 
manures. 
Wo shall notice later the various forma of nitrogen 
ordinarly used in opmmorcial fertilizers. — ffulletin 
ef the Seie Yorh Ayricultnral Experiment Statiom 
^ 
SOME POINTS IN PRACTICAL, FORESTRY. 
In an interesting review, by Dr. Brandis, of Dr. 
Sohlich's “ Manual of Forestry," published in a recent 
number of Ealnre, attention is called to tho foot that 
this book was prepared by the author primarily for 
tho use of tho students at tho Cooper's Hill Forest 
School in England. That school was established seven 
years ago, in connection with tho Royal Indian En- 
gineering College, in order to give the iicedod pro- 
fessional training to young Englishmen who desired 
to enter the Indian Forest Department. When tho 
first volume of this handbook appeared some persons, 
wiio took a deep interest in the progress of forestry 
in the British Indian Flmpiro, wore surprised that it 
did not deal with Indian trees, but tliat its teaching 
were illustrated by the Oak, tlio Beeoh, tho .Scotch 
Pine and oilier trees of Europe, and the book was, 
therefore, pronounced hy tlieni a failure. But tho 
principles of silvioiUture are the same everywhere, and 
the application of these principles to tho treatment of 
different woods in different parts of tho globe will 
lead to the adoption of similar methods; and, there- 
fore, according to Dr. Brandis, tho author of th- 
manual was right in selecting tho timber of 
6-1 
" 1 »<' n i-LS I 
Europe to illustrate those principles and the prac- 
tice based upon them, because those trees are at 
hand for example, and because the systoraatio treat- 
ment of European forests is of long standing, and 
has endured the test of experience, while the metho- 
dical care of Indian forests is not more than thirty- 
five years old. As an interesting example of the way 
in which similar practices have developed in the 
rearing and tending of woods in Ear<^ and in 
India, we quote tho following parallel from Dr. Brandis’ 
review : — 
In a loop of the Main River, in Lower Franconia, 
oast of Aschaffenborg, rises an extensive monntainons 
country, clothed with almost unbroken forest of singular 
beauty and of enormous value. It is the Spessart, in 
old times known as the homo and haunt of great high- 
way robbers, but also known from time immemorial 
as the home of the best Oak timber in Germany, The 
red sandstone of the Trias, which everywhere is the 
underlying rock in this extensive forest-country, makes 
a light sandy loam, which, where deep, is capable of 
producing tall, cylindrical, well-shapod stems. Having 
grown up, while young, in a densely crowded wood, 
tho Oak hero has cleared itself of side branches at an 
early age. Hence these clean straight stems 
which, in the case of Spruce, Silver Fir, and other 
forest-trees, may justly bo said to be the rule, but 
which the Oak does not produce, save under these and 
similarly favourable circumstances. The species here 
is Qwrens scssilifiom; this species does not form pure 
forests, bnt is always found mixed with other trees, 
the Iloruboam, the Boech, and on the lower slopes 
of the western Bchwarzwald, tho Silver Fir. In the 
Spessart, tho Beech is associated with the Oak in the 
same manner as the Bamboo is the chief associate 
of the Tcak-troo In Burma. 
The principles which guide the forester in tho pro- 
per treatment of his woods ore tho same In India as 
In Europe. In the Teak- forests of Burma tho Bamboo 
has a position similar to that of tho Beech in the 
Oak foroBts of tho Spessart. Oak and Teak are both 
trees with comparatively light foliage. Pure woods 
of these species, while young, are sufficiently dense 
to shade the gronnd, whereas at an advanced ago the 
wood gets thin, the canopy light, and tho result is 
that grass and weeds appear, and that by tho action 
of snu and wind the soil hardens and Is less fertile 
than the loose porous soil, which is shaded by dense 
masses of foliage. Hence the advantage of associates, 
which, like tho Beech in Europe and tho Bamboo in 
Bnrma, shade the ground with their dense foliage, 
and enrich it by the abundant fall of their loaves. 
But it is not only the condition of the ground which is 
improved by these useful associates. Teak and Oak 
have this specialty also in common, that, when grow- 
ing up alone, their stems, instead of running up into 
dean cylindrical boles, ore apt to throw out side 
branches, which greatly impair the market value of 
the log. But when growing up In dense masses with 
their natural associates, thesd latter, crowding in as 
they do on all sides around tho Oak in the Spessart 
and the Teak in Bunnii, prevent tho dovelopraont of 
side branches, and thus produce dean and regularly 
shaped stems. 
In these and many other ways are tho associates 
of tho Teak and of tne Oak useful friends, so to speak. 
Under certain circumstances, however, and at certain 
periods of their life, they are flungerons enemies to 
their more valuable companions. On the sandstone 
of tho Spessart, and elsewhere, tho Beech, as arnle, 
has a more vigorous growth than tho Oak ; it gets 
the upper haudi and, unless it Is cut back or thinned 
out in time, the Oak, if both are growing up in an 
oven mixture, has no chance. Tho Bamboo is_even 
trees among them arc throttled aad estuiguisiicd. 
more fomiidable a.s an enemy of tho young Ic8«- 
tree. Though tho Teak may have had a lonflj"''®? 
if a crop of Bamboos — either tho shop'" ° ? rtn- 
zoiuos, or, perliaps, tho resiUt of ^ 8 of 
tho old Bamboo-Iorost, dei>''J., .heTeaW room 
for the Teak-anriiii?»"r“‘,“°“I'.,'u W doomed. 
\8 soon as tb- the Bamboo have acquired 
Jli'bngtli, they produce, within a few weeks, 
SlLiug tho rains, such a profusion of full-sizod shoots, 
Kftv twentv to thirty foot high, that tho vouncr Teak , 
