Nutrition de la plante. 4: Cycle de l'azote

Abstract

A SUBJECT which has attracted the attention of botanist, chemist, and bacteriologist alike is bound to be unwieldy and its literature difficult to survey in a book of three hundred pages. Especially is is the case when, being part of a scientific encyclopaedia, it must presumably be intelligible to those whose general scientific knowledge is only limited. From this point of view, the book is well written, and the author, while necessarily introducing a good deal of text-book matter—as in Chap, i., which deals largely with tests and properties of various nitrogen containing compounds—has yet found space enough to make reference to more than two hundred original papers. These have been well surveyed, and, in most cases, actual experimental numbers are given. The various stages of the cycle are worked out somewhat on monograph lines in Chaps, ii.-v. under the self-explanatory headings of nutrition, digestion, and transformation. The sixth and last chapter is devoted to the bêtes noires, or those nitrogen containing bodies which do not find a definite place in the cycle. The conflicting data and opinions of various authors are given, and the reader advisedly left to form his own. A complete bibliography concludes a very readable and useful book.

Nutrition de la plante. 4: Cycle de l'azote.

Marin

Molliard

Par. (Encyclopédie scientifique: Bibliothèque de Physiologie et de Pathologie végétales.) Pp. xv + 319. (Paris: Gaston Doin, 1925.) 15 francs.