The micro-organisms of the soil

From the earliest times agriculturists have been familiar with the idea that decomposition of vegetable and animal matter takes place in the soil, and that the process is intima...

To understand the development of our knowledge of soil bacteria, it must be remembered that bacteriology is under the disadvantage that it started as an applied science. Althoug...

The activities of the soil bacteria that we have yet to consider are those connected with the building-up from simpler materials of the protoplasm of the bacterial cell. It is i...

That protozoa could be isolated from the soil was a matter of common knowledge to the biologists of the nineteenth century, but not until the early part of the present century w...

From the beginning great difficulty has been encountered in finding means for counting protozoa; and most of the early results have been obtained by the use of one of the follow...

Speaking broadly, the organisms of the soil may be classified into several distinct groups differing conspicuously in their general characters and physiological functions and th...

In 1886 Adametz,[1] investigating the biochemical changes occurring in soils, isolated several species of fungi. It was, however, only with the work of Oudemans and Koning,[17]...

In the last chapter fungi were considered as so many specific but functionless units in the soil. Unless, however, they are regarded merely as inert spore contaminations from th...

The micro-organisms of the soil have been fully discussed in the preceding chapters of this volume. There now remains to be considered the fauna of invertebrate animals, other t...

In the preceding chapters it is shown that the soil is normally inhabited by a very mixed population of organisms, varying in size from the smallest bacteria up to nematodes and...