On the Growth of Plants in Partially Sterilised Soils

During the past few years we have grown a large number of plants in partially sterilised soils alongside of others in untreated soils, in order to compare the total weights of dry matter produced. While the experiments were in progress certain qualitative differences in growth and habits of the plants revealed themselves; we propose in this paper to record these differences and to set out certain of the hypotheses that have been put forward to account for them. It was soon found that several distinct problems in plant physiology were concerned, and that any attempt to test the hypotheses experimentally would involve us in a number of side issues and lead us away from our main purpose. We therefore for the present confine ourselves to a statement of the facts observed, leaving their more complete elucidation for later work.