$38 REPORT ON CROP PRODUCTION OF THE 
Pagnoul’® decided that a plant may take up soda, yet in plants 
grown with soda, the potash content was three times as large as 
that of soda. Plants which received only potash contained no 
soda or at least not more than traces. Oats, he stated, will not 
take up soda as long as there is potash present, yet in case of a 
shortage of salts of the latter, soda may have a beneficial action. 
Paul Wagner” concluded from experimental work that soda 
may have an essential influence upon the development of the 
plant, and that the crop may be increased almost one-half by 
using salt with a potash fertilizer; but it is impossible for soda 
to perform all the functions of potash in plant growth. 
Maercker™ gave results showing the beneficial action of 
sodium and magnesium chloride when applied with potash in 
the Stassford salts. 
The author’s (Stahl-Schroeder) own work was planned first 
to gain some light on the question of the presence of soda in 
plants and second to determine the possibility of partially rep'ac- 
ing potash by soda in plants. | 
Working with the oat plant he found soda present in prac- 
tically all cases even with a large supply of potash in the fer- 
tilizer. This was true of roots, straw and grain. | 
To solve the second question the author resorted to pot expesi- 
ments growing peas, oats, carrots and buckwheat in Wagner’s 
vegetation pots, using a potash-poor peat soil. All the pots 
received phosphoric acid, lime, nitrogen and magnesia. In addi- 
tion two pots in each set received two grams potash and two 
two grams soda. The increase of the weight of the crop was in 
all cases so small, when using soda, over the pot receiving 
neither potash nor soda that the action, either direct or indirect, 
of the soda is certainly not worth considering. 
Chemical analysis of the crops receiving neither potash nor 
soda showed a low percentage of potash and as a rule a larger 
percentage of soda. With the pots receiving potash this was 
” Biedermann’s Centralblatt, 1895. 
“Die Stickstoffdungung der landw. Kulturpflanzen. Berlin : 1892. 
*1 Arbeiten der deutschen Landwirtschafts-Gesellschaft, 20. 
