BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 263 
of 1873. Large glass jars were used to hold the mixtures, four buck- 
wheat seeds were planted in each jar, and the mixtures were watered 
with rain-water. 
The mixtures in jars Nos. 4 and 5 of this set of experiments were 
manifestly ill-suited for the growth of buckwheat. Not a single sprout 
appeared from the seeds that were planted in No. 4, and some ger- 
minated seeds that were subsequently planted in that jar failed to take 
root. The seeds originally planted in jar No. 5 likewise failed; but 
one of the four germinated seeds that were afterwards planted there 
grew with the results above stated. The small gain in the weight of 
crop No. 5 over and above the weight of that obtained in No. 6, from 
sand alone, has a certain interest in connection with some of Boussin- 
gault’s results. For it is to be noted that his crops obtained from mix-— 
tures of loam and sand, equally unfavorable with those in Nos. 4 and 
5 for the growth of plants, weighed more than the crops obtained by 
him under similar circumstances from mixtures that contained no nitro- 
gen. Thus a maize plant grown by Boussingault (page 352) in a mix- 
ture containing: garden loam, 50 grammes; fragments of quartz, 123 
grammes; ash of dung, 0.05 gramme, and phosphate of lime, 0.10 
gramme, in which the ratio of loam to sand was as 1 to 2}, gave a 
crop that weighed 0.675 gramme; while another maize plant grown 
(page 354) in a mixture of 125 grammes quartz fragments, 30 grammes 
powdered pumice stone, and 0.01 gramme ash of dung, gave a crop 
that weighed 0.289 gramme. In the latter case the dry crop weighed 
14 times as much as the seed, and in the former a little less than three 
times as much as the seed. 
So, too, a dwarf bean grown by Boussingault (page 348), in a mix- 
ture of 100 grammes loam, 75 grammes quartz fragments, 0.05 gramme 
ash of dung, and 0.1 gramme phosphate of lime (ratio of loam to 
sand = 1 to 3), gave a crop that weighed 3.434 grammes, or 637 times 
the weight of the seed; another (page 315), grown in 50 grammes of 
loam by itself, gave a crop equal to 1.89 grammes, or 44 times the 
weight of the seed; another (page 312), grown in 40 grammes of the 
loam by itself, gave a crop equal to 1.1 gramme, or three times 
the weight of the seed; while one grown without loam (page 351), in 
a mixture of 100 grammes quartz fragments, 40 grammes pumice stone, 
and 0.1 gramme ash of dung, gave a crop equal to 0.967 gramme, or 
twice the weight of the seed. 
