60 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



has already been shown that American-grown seed yields beets which 

 are superior to those grown from European seed. Moreover, tlie 

 seed produced by Europe is insufficient to meet the increased demands 

 of both the European and the American markets. Indeed, Old 

 World dealers have recently turned to America in an attempt to pur- 

 chase large quantities of American-grown sugar-beet seed for sale in 

 Europe. It appears that America must produce her own beet seed be- 

 fore the beet-sugar industry can become properly established here. 

 It is only natural that in the face of the present shortage the best of 

 the European seed should be retained for use there, so that the Amer- 

 ican sugar-beet growers are not only sending many hundreds of 

 thousands of dollars annually to Europe for seed which should be 

 produced at home, but they run grave risks of securing only inferior 

 seed which will materially reduce the profits of beet growing. 



A number of problems in beet culture and questions of irrigation 

 and rotation are also pressing for solution. Work along these lines 

 has been inaugurated and is being pushed with all possible dispatch. 

 In order to profit as fully as possible by the knowledge gained by 

 Europeans in their long experience with this crop, a representative 

 of the department has been sent to visit the beet fields and experi- 

 ment stations of Germany, France, and Russia, with a view to 

 the adapting of their practices to American conditions. 



SOIL-BACTERIOLOGY AND WATER-PURIFICATION INVESTIGATIONS. 



The results reported by cooperators using cultures of the nodule- 

 forming bacteria for inoculating legumes indicate the continuation 

 of a high percentage of successful inoculation. The description of 

 convenient methods for distinguishing between the infection of 

 crown-gall upon the roots of legumes and the development of the 

 nitrogen-fixing nodules offers some opportunity for controlling the 

 dissemination of crown-gall when the inoculation of legumes is at- 

 tempted by the use of soil from old fields. 



In the investigations in general soil bacteriology the study of cellu- 

 lose destruction has for the present become of the greatest im- 

 portance. Many new species of cellulose-dissolving bacteria and other 

 fungi have been isolated, and it is believed that these are closely 

 correlated with the development of nitrifying and nitrogen-fixing 

 bacteria and therefore with the maintenance of soil fertility. - 



Through correspondence, various improvements have been sug- 

 gested in water supplies and especially in the case of pollutions from 

 odor-producing algse. The most desirable treatment for the eradica- 

 tion of these organisms has been determined by the examination of 

 samples shipped to the laboratory from the polluted supplies. 



