QUESTION OF THE SOURCES OP THE NITROGEN OF VEGETATION. 
81 
In seed 
millig. . 
290-2 
119-7 
Gains . 
millig. . 
+ 
19-2 + 
10-2 
Gains . 
. per cent. 
+ 
6 6 -f 
8-5 
Of the 8 germination experiments in sand, 1 
3 were 
conducted in the open 
results were :— 
In seed . 
millig. . 
100-3 
102-9 
109-7 
Loss . 
miiliof. . — 
o 
6-0 
— 10-9 
— 16-6 
Loss . 
per cent. — 
5-9 
- 10-6 
- 15-1 
Three experiments in a greenhouse showed 
In seed . 
millig. . 
115-6 
103-4 
101-4 
Loss . 
millig. . — 
8-4 
— 12-7 
— 16-5 
Loss . 
per cent. — 
7-3 
— 12-4 
— 16-3 
Lastly, two experiments in 
a room in a dwelling-house, showed :— 
In seed 
millig. . 
88-3 
88-2 
Loss . 
millio-. . 
O 
- 7-2 - 
9-7 
Loss . 
per cent. 
- 8-2 - 
11-0 
Atwater discusses the results of other experimenters, including those of Bous- 
siNGAULT, ScHLCESiNG, and ourselves and the late Dr. Pugh, on the evolution of free 
nitrogen under various conditions. On the whole he concludes, that germination 
without the liberation of nitrogen is the normal process ; that losses, whether during 
germination, or in later periods of growth, are due to forms of decay; and that they 
would thus be not essential to germination and growth, but accessory phenomena. 
He, nevertheless, gives a table showing, for ,8 of his experiments, the actual gains 
found, the greater gains , supposing there had been a loss of l.o per cent, of nitrogen— 
as in some of his own germination experiments, and the still greater gains supposing 
a loss of 45 per,cent., as shown in experiments of Boussingault in the germination 
of beans and maize, under special conditions, in contact with nitrate. He admits, 
however, that there is no evidence to show what was the loss in his own vegetation 
experiments. 
We may here remark, that, in full recognition of the loss of nitrogen under conditions 
of decay, it was concluded, both by Boussingault and at Bothamsted, that excepting 
in some cases in which there was obviously some decay, tlie results were not vitiated 
by any such loss, and in those cases the losses found were so explained. 
Atwater quotes Boussingault’s earliest experiments, made in 1837 and 1838, to 
show that with clover and peas nitrogen must have been gained from the air. It 
MDCCCLXXXrX.-B. M 
