The observation of the profile and collection of the samples were made on the soil formation covering thick gravel bed of the upper terrace (Fig. 1) near the appex of the dissected fan of Azusa River, extending eastwards across the fault basin of Matumoto in the northern part of the Central Highland of Japan Proper. The Azusa River comes from the eastern side of the central range of the northern " Nippon Alps " to the Matumoto basin. The climate of this basin resembles that of the inland river valleys of the North Japan Proper, having 10.3℃ of the average annual temperature and ll2 cm of total annual precipitation. The profile (Fig. 2) consists of the following three holizons : (1) the Surface Soil (± 4 dm) consisting of loose clay rich in humus and with grayish brown colour, (2) the Upper Subsoil (± 9 dm) consisting of soft clay very poor in humus and with faintly reddish, light brown-yellow colour, and (3) the Lower Subsoil (± 8 dm) consisting of soft clay very poor in humus and with light brown-yellow colour. The three holizons pass each other without distinct boundaries. The subsoils are destitute of colour patches or stripes. The reaction of the soil is faintly to weakly acid. The original material of the soil is the volcanic ash of two-pyroxene andesite with biotite and hornblende. The chemical analyses of the fine soils and clay fractions (<0.002 mm) show that the soils are rich in alumina, rather poor in silica and extremely poor in lime. The molecular ratios of SiO_2 : Al_2O_3 and Fe_2O_3 : Al_2O_3 in the parts decomposed by boiling hydrochloric acid are as follows : - [table] If we assume that the more than half of ferric oxide is in the combination 2SiO_2 : Fe_2O_3 (in Mol.), the molecular ratio SiO_2 : Al_2O_3 in the surface soil approaches that of allophane, and the ratio in the subsoil becomes less than that of allophane suggesting the possibility of the presence of free alumina. The surface soil absorbs the acid fuchsine faintly and the methylene blue very distinctly. The subsoil absorbs the former distinctly and the latter rather weakly to distinctly. Those results indicate that the soil belongs to the amphiphilous group of our volcanic-ash soils, which is found frequently in the northern part of Kanto Plain and in the southern part of the Central Highland. The morphological feature of the profile shows that the soil formation belongs to the brown soil in wide meaning, though the degradation is slightly going on. From the above mentioned data the soil can be regarded as the sub-allitic one. The writer might designate this soil as the weakly acid sub-alltic brown soil. It occupies the intermediate stage between Tokyo loam (sub-sialltic), and the Onji soil (allitic) of the Southwest Japan in the progress of weathering.

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The volcanic ash soils which passed through 0.5 mm. sieve, were treated with the normal potassium salt solutions of nitrate, sulphate acetate, oxalate and citrate, varying respectively in pH ; and the phosphosphoric acids thus dissolved, were destermined with the filtrates. The pH values of the filtrates were also estimated. The results were as follows : l. The amounts of P_2O_5 dissolved, varied with the pH of the salt solutions, but the tendency was markedly differred with the nature of soils. 2. The amounts of P_2O_5 also varied with the kinds of salt solutions, and the tendency was also differred with the nature of soils.

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Some fresh-water algae and weeds spontaneusly developing in the paddy field were analysed for their chemical constituents and decomposed in the soil, chiefly intended to suggest how far they are responsible for the circulation of the fertilizer nitrogen. The results may be summarized as follows : - 1. Two species of film-forming algae, Euglena sp. and Pleurococcen sp., and a sort of Lemnacea, Lemna paucicostata Hegelm, were artificially developed in the water-logged soil fertilized with 60 mg nitrogen (as ammonium sulfate) per pot. At their maximum development (after 21 days culture) the total nitrogen absorbed and converted into organic form by the algae and lemna reached 6.08〜15.28 mg per pot. 2. Six sorts of algae and weeds, i. e. Hydrodictyon sp., Spirogyra sp., Euglena sp., Lemna paucicostata Hegelm, Hydrilla verticillata Casp var Roxburghii, Najas graminea Delile, commonly observed in abundant development at the Konosu experiment field, were collected and analysed for the amount of organic and inorganic constituents. For the determination of organic materials the proximate method proposed by WAKSMAN and STEVENS was conveniently used. The total nitrogen content varied from 2.20 to 6.62 % dry weight, and carbon-nitrogen ratios from 20.1 to 6.6. The water-soluble nitrogen content showed fairly good proportionality to the total nitrogen content. It is of interest in connection with the later mentioned decomposition study, that the content of the lignin, reported by many workers to be considerably resistant to bacterial attack and recently suggested by WAKSMAN to play an important role in the formation of soil humus, was fairely low and fluctuated from 2.91 to 6.18 % dry weight. 3. The aforenamed six samples were respectively decomposed in the soil under both paddy field and dry farm conditions and examined on the mode of nitrogen mineralisation. Under paddy field condition the ammonia accumulation at the earlier stage of decomposition proceeded with greater rapidity as the carbon-nitrogen ratio was narrower. As the mineralisation progressed further, however, the samples of wider carbon-nitrogen ratio appeared to recover the power of ammonia formation and in view of the maximum ammonia accumulation they were even comparable with those of narrower carbon-nitrogen ratio. Under dry farm condition the nitrate formation was more effective as the carbon-nitrogen ratio was narrower during the whole period of experiment and showed close agreement with the width of the carbon-nitrogen ratio. Moreover, a brief description of the distillation apparatus was conveniently given, which one of the authers SHIOIRI proposed for the determination of ammonium-nitrogen in the soil, devised after the micro distillation apparatus of PARNAS and WAGNER.

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The experimental results obtained as follows : (1) In cyanamide solution at pH 8.9 most of cyanamide molecules polymerise to dicyandiamide, but the formation of dicyandiamide is decreased by a addition of Acid earth (Japanease acid clay) or Komaba soil to this solution, and in these solutions Acid earth and Komaba soil adsorb cyanamide and morover Komaba soil hydrolyze cyanamide to urea. From these facts, it is concluded that the adsorption and hydrolysis of cyanamide molecules by Acid earth or Komaba soil disturb the formation of dicyandiamide from cyanamide. (2) In a soil the formation of dicyandiamide from calcium cyanamide is not only affected by a pH value of a soil, but also greatly by the certain colloidal substances which have the catalytic actions of hydrolysis of cyanamide molecules, and the more a soil contains these colloids. the less amount of dicyandiamide formes. (3) Dicyandiamide is more stable in neutral than in acid solution (pH 2.72), but on the contrary guanidinphosphate is relatively stable in acid. (4) Nitrogen and phosphorous of guanylureaphosphate and guanidinphosphate are both absorbed by Komaba soil, at which absorptions those two elements do not appear to be absorbed in these molecular conditions respectively, and nitrogen of the former compound is more easily absorbed than the latter, and dicyandiamide and guanidinhy-drochloride are only slightly. (5) The results of ammonification and nitrification of Lime Nitrogen, urea, dicyandiamide and guanylureaphosphate in paddy-field and field conditions are nearly agree with those of other many investigaters. In above both conditions of soil guanidinphosphate, guanidinnitrate and guanidincarbonate decompose very slow at lower temperature, but slightly rapid at higher temperature, and guanidion salts easier than dicyandiamide.

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The fertilizer ratio, which is understand as the ratio existing between the percentage of nitrogen, phosphorus and potash in a fertilizer is a most important factor in manuring practice, as it determines the efficiency of the fertilizer used. The growth of plant being affected by the condition of soil and climate, the fertilizer ratio suitable for a plant is not the same everywhere the plant is cultivated. The determining factors of this ratio of a fertilizer seem, therefore, to be the following : 1) Kind of crop. 2) Climatic conditions. 3) Soil character. It is, then, desirable, if possible, to find a fundamental relation of these factors to the fertilizer ratio in the form of an equation, as we have not heretofore known anything about the deduction of such an equation. As the first step of an investigation the writers intended to study the relation of temperature to that ratio in the fertilizer given to wheat plants. Calculating out the ratios of P_2O_5 and K_2O to N respectively from the amounts of the ingredients in a manure generally used by farmers, in 191 districts in Japan from north to south, examination was made of their relation to the annual mean temperature and also to the mean temperature of the growth period in each district. The following equation in the case of P_2O_5 to N was found to denote clearly the relation existing between the ratio and temperature. [numerical formula] [numerical formula] where T_1 : mean annual temperature T_2 : mean temperature of growth period This indicates that the ratio of P_2O_5 to N is high at the districts of low temperature, decreasing linearly as the temperature increases regardless of the annual temperature or that of the growth period. In the case of K_2O to N, the following equation was obtained : [numerical formula] [numerical formula] This represents also that the same tendency of temperature relation to the ratio as in the case of P_2O_5 to N can be seen even in the case of K_2O to N.

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This paper deals with methods for the determination of water-soluble potassium in some compound fertilizers which I have recently obtained. Three methods - boiling, washing, shaking with water, - were applied to the determination of these samples and the results of analyses showed remarkable differences among them. While the differences between the washing method and shaking method were hardly acknowledged, the results of the boiling method were gained considerably less than the other two methods. After various experiments I confirmed that the differences were chiefly due to the following two factors. 1) The occlusion of the water-soluble potassium in the precipitate of gypsum which was formed by boiling the sample solution. 2) The formation of the double salt, potassium calcium sulphate (syngenite) according to boiling the sample solution.

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We expect greatly going research upon the quality of agricultural products for a long time, then we have slightly investigated on this object in connection with "Sehihyojunchiyosa." Therefore, we report one part of studies on the garden radish. We examined the fact that manure-elements go without saying, each kind of nitrogen manures has remarkably effect upon the radish growth and its chemical compositions at fiftydays after sowing and harvest-time. As conclusion, the first stage of growing, the root-weight is in proportion to its volume, its specific weight to its figure-ratio and also when fertilized with one kind of manure only, radish grows good moderately, but at the last stage i.e. the harvest-time, beyond question we recognized that the excellent result was obtained in the radish quality as a matter of fact with its crop fertilizing with both quick and slow manures.

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We have made experiments, during the past five years, about the differences between the fertilizing value of some new compound fertilizers and the simple mixed inorganic fertilizers (consist of ammonium-sulfate, superphosphate and potassiumsulfate or potassiumchloride) with pot-, field-and laboratorical methods. As one examination, we criticized these two kinds of fertilizer by determining the quantity of nitrates which were changed from ammoniac nitrogen by the action of nitrification bacteria in soil. Some part of three essential elemmnts of these new compound fertilizers consists of chemically complicated compounds with calciumsulfate, their surfaces are covered with thin layer of citric acid soluble dicalciumphosphate or water insoluble tri-calciumphosphate. Therefore the contact surface between soil and these granular formed-fertilizers will not only be reduced but the rate of direct disolving power will be disturbed. According to these facts it may be found that the three essential elements can be stored by itself in the granular formed-fertilizer. Now on this paper we report thermostat-bath experiment. Its results are as follows. Table I. Analysed nitrogen (mg) after some definite intervals. [table] In this experiment we used little glass pots in which 300g no nutrient Arakawa Alluvian soil (Total Nitorogen 0.24%, pH 4.25) was filled, keeping 30℃, 35% moisture. We have analysed nitorogen of total soil after some definite intervals by method of A. O. A. C., Contents of each pot are 0.1g. N, P_2O_5,K_2O and 0.5g. CaCO_3 . From this table it can be ascertained that the Mikunikasei-fertilizer can delay the nitrification even at the good conditions, where simple mixed fertilizers can not.

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