Translations:Benutzer:Arian/Klett-Mini-Test/838/en

The life preserved in the substance-composition of the fully ripened humus now converts itself into the life of heterotrophic organisms in the darkness of the earth — the countless multitude of bacteria, protozoa and fungi which, comparable to intestinal digestion, in their turn decompose as they die back into their material components, and these then pass into solution in the soil water as salts. It is the vegetative growth of the plant stand in spring that conducts the proceedings, by way of the process of "digesting soil fertility," and so too governs the right measure of mineral salts released — above all nitrogen. The latter are adsorbed by the root hairs simultaneously with the excretion of assimilates, in counter-current to it.