No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE!. 163 



tion SO that I could utilize the food I ate, and obtain strength. Now, 

 suijjjose I had been dissatisfied because I had to discard bread and 

 meat and live on quinine. Applying that to this matter of fertilizers, 

 I say that we ought not to condenm commercial fertilizers because 

 we can't discard everything else and grow our commercial crops on 

 commercial fertilizers. Take a worn-out farm, and use a lot of com- 

 mercial fertilizer and if we can't take care of the soil and produce 

 good results after that, then we are not good farmers, and better 

 give it up; but let us not condemn this medicine. 



PROF. HAMILTON: I, too, went around the Experiment Station 

 plots up at the State College and there I saw some things that per- 

 haps Mr. Agee did not discover. I was quite familiar with the plot 

 system, for I have given my attention to it for a good many years. I 

 was attracted to this fact, that although it is true that on many plots 

 where acidulated bone black was used, there is a fair stand of clover. 

 It is also true that where sulphate of ammonia is added to any 

 acidulated rock, there is an absolute lacking of clover. What does 

 that prove? That the acidulation in the quantity of material used, 

 that the bone black was not sufficient to re-enter the soil so as to 



prevent a fair crop of clover being grown, or the bacteria in the soil 

 being propagated and when sulphate of ammonia was used, giving 

 to it an additional quantity of acid; although nitrogen, of course, is 

 a constituent of this application, and an amount of acidity has been 

 created that prevents the growth of clover absolutely on such plots. 

 I hope that the lecturers here will go over the series of plots care- 

 fully. There should be a great deal of time given to the study of this 

 fact right there, and you can see for yourselves that where the acidity 

 is suUiciently great, there is no clover. That is also true in Ohio 

 with which I have been familiar for two years by going back and 

 forth. They have a long series of plots in which the invariable re- 

 sult is, that where this acidity exists you get no clover. Acidity is 

 not the only thing that will prevent the growth of clover; that is 

 another thing, and if you want to have a demonstration of that, I 

 don't know a better place for it than right at my farm at State Col- 

 lege. When you go up there I will show you something that I think 

 will be of very great service to you for the rest of your lives. To 

 me, it has been one of the greatest surprises of my life. This is on 

 a jilot of alfalfa. I sowed a small plot with alfalfa near my barn, 

 right near the College, and it will be no trouble for you to go 

 and see it. There is a small plot there which I wish to test thor- 

 oughly, and I got this from the Agricultural Department at Washing- 

 ton that is said to have been inocculated, and sowed it on this plot. 

 I got some earth from Mr. Seeds, at Birmingham, that came from an 

 alfalfa field that had been thoroughly inocculated. I gave directions 

 11 



