The poles, five yards high, were placed far away from each other, so that the wires were quite loose. Owing to the high tension of the currents that had to be passed through the wires, the insulators on the poles were very powerful. The currents were positive and of a high potential--about 100,000 volts. The escape of electricity under these conditions was so great that it could be seen in the dark. One could also feel it on the hair and the face while passing under the wires. Nevertheless, the expenditure of electric force was small, Sir Oliver Lodge writes; because, if the potential was high, the quantity of consumed energy was, notwithstanding that, very small. It is known, indeed, that this is also the case with the discharges of atmospheric electricity, which are terrible in consequence of their high tension, but do not represent a great loss of energy. An oil motor of two horse-power was therefore quite sufficient. The results were very satisfactory. The wheat crop in the electrified field was, in the years 1906-1907, by 29 to 40 per cent. greater, and also of better quality, than in the non-electrified field. The straw was also from four to eight inches longer. For strawberries the increase of the crop was 35 per cent., and 25 per cent. for beetroot. As to the inoculation of useful microbes by means of watering the soil with cultures of nitrifying bacteria, experiments on a great scale have been made in Prussia upon some peat-bogs. The German agricultural papers speak of these experiments as having given most satisfactory results. Most interesting results have also been obtained in Germany by heating the soil with a mixture of air and hot steam passed along the ordinary draining tubes. A society has been formed to propagate this system, and the photographs of the results published by the Society in a pamphlet, _Gartenkultur, Bodenheizung, Klimaverbesserung_ (Berlin, 1906), seem to prove that with a soil thus heated the growth of certain vegetables is accelerated to some extent. U.--PETTY TRADES IN THE LYONS REGION.