Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from A Review of Investigations in Soil Bacteriology
Soil fertility, broadly interpreted, denotes the crop-producing power of any soil under given climatic conditions, and is itself the resultant of many forces often opposed to one another. It'is no easy task to establish the correlation of these several forces, and to assign to each its true position as a factor in the creation of plant substance. We do know that suitable moisture and temperature conditions are indispensable not only for the absorption and assimi lation of the plant food in the soil, but also for the formation of this plant food. Granting, however, that the moisture and tem perature conditions are suitable, our inquiry is at once directed toward the ways and means whereby the soil is made to yield nour ishment to the plants growing upon it. Obviously, an intimate knowledge of the ways and means of plant-food production is, aside from its theoretical interest, of great practical concern, a fact which is exemplified by the benefits derived by our agricultural industries from the researches of the agricultural chemist. It was through the investigations of the latter that we have learned to know the con crete meaning of the term plant food, and have learned also to apply this knowledge to the incalculable advantage of society. But as the rapidly accumulating experimental data broadened. His horizon, the agricultural chemist was the first to recognize that chemical methods alone were wholly inadequate for a clear comprehension of the complicated processes occurring in arable soils. The keen insight of Hilgarda revealed the vast possibilities that lay in the joint application of chemical and physical methods in the study of soil fertility problems, and the splendid contributions of soil physics to scientific agriculture bear testimony to the soundness of his judgment. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
