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Investigations on “Sickness” in Soil: I. Sewage “Sickness”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2009

E. J. Russell  and
J. Golding
E. J. Russell
Affiliation:
Goldsmiths' Soil Chemist, Rothamsted Experimental Station
J. Golding
Affiliation:
Head of the Chemical and Bacteriological Laboratories, Midland Agricultural College.
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Extract

The experiments of Russell and Hutchinson1 have shown that the micro-organic population of ordinary soils is not working at a maximum efficiency; there exists a biological factor, provisionally identified with the soil protozoa, detrimental to bacteria and limiting their numbers and activities. It follows that any change in the conditions of the soil that is more favourable to the harmful organisms than to the bacteria will disturb the normal equilibrium between these two sets of organisms and lead to a relative reduction in bacterial numbers and activity. We shall therefore expect to find that causes not in themselves harmful to bacteria may bring about a reduction of bacteria through favouring the development of the detrimental factor.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Agricultural Science , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , October 1912 , pp. 27 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1912

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References

page 27 note 1 This Journal, 1909, 3, 111.Google Scholar

page 28 note 1 Such a soil may take 30,000 gallons of sewage per acre per day, equivalent to nearly 1½ inches of rainfall. Other land, however, may take only 3000. At Birmingham the average quantity has been 6000 (Watson, J. D., Proc. Instit. Civil Engineers, 1910, CLXXXI, Part III).Google Scholar

page 28 note 2 The details of Col. Jones' management are described in Natural and Artificial Sewage Treatment: Col. A. S. Jones and H. A. Roechling, London, 1902. The land treatment of sewage is also fully discussed in the 5th Report of the Sewage Commission.

page 29 note 1 In the present case the sewage is mainly domestic, there being no trade effluent except from one large brewery.

The question is more fully discussed by us in Journ. Soc. Chem. Ind. 1911, 30, 471, “Sewage sickness in soil and its amelioration by partial sterilisation”.Google Scholar

page 31 note 1 Fowler, G. J., City of Manchester Rivers Dept. Annual Report, 1911. We understand that Dr Fowler and Mr Crabtree are extending these interesting observations.Google Scholar

page 31 note 2 Meixner, A., “The fauna of the Bradford coke bed effluent” (Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. 1908, 14, 530).Google Scholar

page 32 note 1 We are now paying 10d. a gallon for commercial “toluole”.

page 32 note 2 Russell, , this Journal, 1910, 3, 233.Google Scholar

page 33 note 1 Owing to the very great difficulty of sampling, these numbers are necessarily only approximate.

page 33 note 2 Golding, , “A New Bottle for Cultures,” Journal of the Society of Chemical Industry, 1906, 25, p. 677.Google Scholar

page 36 note 1 See also Russell, and Hutchinson, , this Journal, 1909, 3, 111.Google Scholar

page 42 note 1 Our best results were obtained with a centrifuge running at 4000 revolutions per minute but we could get satisfactory results even with a Gerber centrifuge in which the butyrometer tubes were replaced by test tubes of stout glass. One of us has used this latter method as a class exercise to demonstrate the presence of motile bacteria and other organisms in the soil.

page 42 note 2 Russell, Cf. and Hutchinson, , op. cit. Vol. III. p. 129, and Russell and Petherbridge,Google Scholar this volume, p. 96.