THE FARMER'S HIDDEN ALLIES.
The Soil, By A. D. Hall, Director of the Rothamsted Station (La,wes Agricultural Trust). Second Edition. (John Murray. Ss. net.)—The chapter in Mr. Hall's excellent book which has had to be entirely rewritten for his second edition is that dealing with the baeterial life of the soil. During the last six years, as is pointed out, the greatest additions to our knowledge of the soil have unquestionably been those concerned with the valuable work done for the farmer by his hidden allies, whose factory is just below the surface of his land. There could not be a more trust- worthy introductiou to the whole subject than Mr. Hall's book. It is at once authoritative and wide in scope, and it gives the reader an impression of the difficulties of the subject which is not conveyed by some writing on soil problems.—Bacteria in Rela- tion to Country Life. By J. G. Lipman, Ph.D., Soil Chemist for the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. (Macmillan and Co. 4s. 6d. net.)—Dr. Lipman describes in even greater detail than Mr. Hall the minute life which, though its existence was unsuspected until Leeuwenhoek beheld "animalcules," appeared on the earth before man. Several chapters are necessarily devoted to bacterial action in the transformation and increasing in the soil of that nitrogen for which, though it lies, thirty-five thousand tons of it, over every acre of ground, the farmer has had to pay so dearly. Dr. Lipman has no hesitation in saying that "there is scarcely any doubt that future investigations will make it possible to secure the highest yields of nitrogen under any conditions of soil, climate, or crop rotation."
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