NEW PHYTOIiOGIST. 
Vol. XIII, No. 8. October, 1914. 
[Published October 26th, 1914.] 
THE ANTAGONISM BETWEEN IONS IN THE 
ABSORPTION OF SALTS BY PLANTS. 
By Walter Stiles and Ingvar Jorgensen. 
Introduction. 
X N this paper we propose to deal with the antagonism that exists 
between salts, or more properly between ions, in their absorption 
in water solutions by plants. 
That the presence of certain salts in the nutrient solution of 
plants influences the specific effect produced by others has now 
been recognised by agriculturists and agricultural botanists for 
many years, and in consequence many experiments have been 
performed with the object of determining more definitely the nature 
of such mutual influence of salts. Thus a large literature dealing 
with such experiments is to be found in journals devoted to the 
recording of agricultural experiments. Yet the methods in common 
use among agriculturists have not resulted in much definite 
information. 
Even now the laws governing absorption of salts by plants are 
little understood, but during the last few years the application of 
the methods of plant physiology has brought several fresh ways 
of attack. The work which has resulted along several different 
lines has produced more hopeful results, and although our knowledge 
of these questions is still in its infancy, yet several quite definite 
facts are becoming clear. Perhaps the most interesting of these, 
the one with which we intend to deal in this paper, is that of the 
mutual hindrance to their absorption produced by ions with a 
charge of the same sign—the phenomenon now generally known as 
antagonistic ion action. 
