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that no fanner can afford to provide for. Such plants 

 depend entirely upon fertilizers for their expensive 

 nitrogen or draAv it from the earth, thus impoverishing 

 the soil. 



The farmer has it in his power to cause tubercles to 

 develop on the roots of his alfalfa, and thus to force the 

 plants to provide their own nitrogenous food, and to 

 enrich the land in )iiitrogen. When leguminous plants 

 form their tubercles without aid from man we may 

 speak of the process a® natural inoculation. Experi- 

 ments on a number of soils jaii Auburn and observations 

 of young alfalfa plants in a number of other localities, 

 lead us to conclude that the alfalfa germ is wanting or 

 not present in sufficient numbers iai inost of the sandy 

 and cla^^ soils of Alabama that are deficient in lime. 

 On such soils the necessary germs must be supplied by 

 the process of inoculation, or more accurately, by arti- 

 ficial inoculation. 



The material used for inoculating alfalfa may be soil 

 from a field where alfalfa or bur clover (a plant of the 

 same genus) has in recent years been well supplied 

 with root tubercles, or it may be a concentrated patent- 

 ed material now being manufactured in the laboratories 

 of the United States Department of Agriculture. 



To inoculate with soil we have used the following 

 methods, depending on convenience and on the amount 

 of inoculating soil available. 



(1) With small amounts of inoculating soil: To 

 about a peck of soil from an old alfalfa or bur clover 

 field add several gallons of water; stir well; allow a 

 few minutes for settling and then moisten everv alfalfa 

 seed thoroughly with the muddy water, which contains 

 the necessary germs. Then dry the seed by mixing 

 with them more of the same iuoculatino- earth in a drv 

 condition and crushed as fine as possible. Cover seed 

 promptly. 



