Bacillus firmus, described and named by Werner (18), is an accepted species of the genus Bacillus, and its nomenclatural type strain is the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) strain 14575 (6). In 1935 Gibson (5) characterized a new species, Bacillus lentus, in a description of nine isolates from five different soils. He separated his nine strains of B. lentus from strains of B. firmus by their production of urease and their failure to decompose casein and gelatin