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The amount and composition of rain falling at Rothamsted: (Based on Analyses Made by the Late Norman H. J. Miller.)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2009

E. J. Russell  and
E. H. Richards
E. J. Russell
Affiliation:
(Rothamsted Experimental Station.)
E. H. Richards
Affiliation:
(Rothamsted Experimental Station.)
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Extract

The ammoniacal nitrogen in the Rothamsted rainwater amounts on an average to 0·405 part per million, corresponding to 2·64 lb. per acre per annum. The yearly fluctuations in lbs. per acre follow the rainfall fairly closely. The monthly fluctuations also move in the same direction as the rain, but the general level is highest during May, June, July and August, and lowest during January, February, March and April (Tables 1, 2, 3, and Figs. 1 and 2).

The nitric nitrogen is on an average one-half the ammoniacal, viz., 1·33 Ib. per acre per annum. The amounts fluctuated year by year and month by month in the same way as the ammoniacal nitrogen and the rainfall until 1910, since when there has been no simple relationship (Tables 1, 2, 3, and Figs. 1 and 2).

Reasons are adduced for supposing that the ammonia arises from several sources. The sea, the soil, and city pollution may all contribute. Neither the sea nor city pollution seems able to account for all the phenomena: the soil is indicated as an important source by the fact that the ammonia content is high during periods of high biochemical activity in the soil, and low during periods of low biochemical activity.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Agricultural Science , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , October 1919 , pp. 309 - 337
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1919

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References

Page 309 note 1 Phil. Trans., 1861, Part II, 431.

Page 309 note 2 Letters on Chemistry, 1851, 3rd ed., 519. In this Letter, the 34th, Liebig sets out his views with characteristic clearness

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Page 310 note 2 British Assoc. Reports, 1854. As will be shown later on, even this figure is twice what it should be.

Page 310 note 3 Now that our French friends have recovered Bechelbrpnn we hope it will be found possible to commemorate in some adequate manner the important work carried out on this farm by Boussingault in laying the foundations of modern agricultural chemistry.

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Page 312 note 1 February is one of the driest months in the whole year so far as actual rainfall is concerned, but there is a popular tradition which is still carried on by popular writers, and which no amount of statistical data is able to break, that it is a wet month. Probably the reason for the tradition is the old proverb “February fill dyke.”

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Page 319 note 1 Taken from reports of Advisory Committee on Atmospheric Pollution.

Page 320 note 2 This figure is rather interesting: it is nearly 900 tons per day, and is considerably more than the whole of the artificial nitrogenous fertilisers used by farmers in the United Kingdom.

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