Experiments on the Effect of Several Nitrogenous Fertilizers 
on Crops. 
BY 
Dr. O. Kellner, Y. Kozai, Y. Mori, and M. Nagaoka. 
Nitrogenous manures contain their nitrogen either in the form 
of readily soluble compounds (ammonia or nitric acid), which 
can be directly consumed through the roots, or they consist of 
more or less soluble organic substances which must generally 
undergo decomposition or oxydation into the above compounds 
before they can be taken up from the soil. The more soluble or 
decomposable a manure, the greater and more rapid is, of course, 
its effect, if rain does not wash it down out of reach of the roots. 
Nitrates represent a nitrogenous manure suitable to all dry 
land plants. As they are not absorbed by the soil, but remain 
freely soluble, and diffuse with great ease through it, the roots 
can take them up very completely within a short time. Owing 
to this rapid entrance of much nitrogen into the roots, the young 
plants have a strong tendency to a rich tillering, but as all of 
the fertilizer is consumed in an early stage of the growth, the 
numerous shoots, which require also in later periods of life 
nitrogenous food, no longer find sufficient of it in the soil, and 
are thus liable to suffer from nitrogen hunger. Hence if a liberal 
quantity of nitrates is applied in one dose before sowing, the yield 
of grain will turn out to be defective in spite of a copious formation 
of accessory stems.—The great solubility of nitrates endangers, 
moreover, their effect, because they are liable to be carried by 
rain so far down that the roots can no longer reach them. 
Ammonia is distinguished from the nitrates by its capacity 
for undergoing absorption in the soil. Hereby it becomes but 
sparingly soluble in the fluids of soils and is thus protected in 
the beginning from being washed into deep layers of the subsoil. 
For the roots it remains, however, soluble enough to be rapidly 
consumed and to cause copious tillering in a similar way to, and 
