iS 
ACTION OF LIME AS A MANURE. 
B. PADDY SOIL. 
No. 
of 
jar. 
Manure. 
Length of 
the 
experiment, 
days. 
Nitric acid. 
grms. 
Ammonia. 
grms. 
— 
Original soil. 
— 
0.047 
0.384 
I 
No manure. 
36 
0.049 
0.411 
2 
Ammonium sulphate .. 
36 
0.081 
not determined. 
3 
Fish manure. 
36 
0.057 
»» 
4 
No manure. 
64 
0.045 
1» 
5 
Ammonium sulphate .. 
58 
0.047 
J i 
6 
Fish manure. 
64 
0.007 
>♦ 
7 
Fish manure without lime .. 
114 
0.116 
1.054 
8 
„ ,, with lime 
114 
0.074 
1.478 
These results plainly show i) that in our dry land soil the 
nitrogenous manures were speedily converted into nitric acid, 
while no such process took place in the irrigated paddy soil ; 
in the latter, ammonia seems to be among the principal 
products of the decomposition of nitrogenous organic fertilizers ; 
^nd 2) that the application of lime distinctly favours on£on\ 
the nitrification in the dry land, and on the other, the 
formation of ammonia in the paddy soil. 
The fact of the non-occurrence of nitrification in paddy soils, 
shown by the above researches had already been noticed by me 
and Mr. J. Sawano in a preliminary trial made in 1882 10 and 
was considered by us to be due to the deficiency of oxygen and 
the presence of much organic matter in the irrigated soils. 
Observations made since by others, indeed, corroborate this 
opinion. Thus A. Baumann * 11 found that nitric acid occurs 
only in minute traces in the common forestial soils in Ger¬ 
many which are usually very rich in humus ; and A. Muntz 11 
proved that in soils micro-organisms commonly occur which 
10 Landw. Versuchsstat., vol. 30, p. 33 
11 Ibid., vol. 33, p. 247. 
12 Biedermann’s Centralblatt für Agriculturchemie. 19. Jahrg., 1890, 
P- 736 . 
