Experiments With Crimson Clover and Hairy Vetch, 



BY J. F. DUGGAE. 



SUMMARY. 



Clover, vetch and similar leguminous plants are able to 

 draw much of their nitrogen from the air when enlargements 

 called tubercules or nodules are found on their roots. They 

 are unable to do this, or to store up fertility, when tubercules 

 are absent. 



In order for tubercules to develop, specific germs or bac- 

 teria must be present in the soil or seed, or come in contact 

 with the young rootlets. In the regions where the clovers,, 

 vetch, alfalfa, etc., are extensively grown, these germs become 

 generally distributed in the soil of the entire region. In a 

 number of localities in Alabama, where these legumes are not 

 grown to any great extent, these germs are absent from some 

 soils or present in insuflBcient numbers. 



Inoculation is the process of supplying these germs, either 

 by scattering on a field some of the germ-laden soil from a 

 field where these rarely grown legumes have borne tubercles,, 

 or byjthe use of the prepared material called Nitragin, 



Nitragin is a concentrated germ fertilizer containing my- 

 riads of germs which are able to cause the growth of tubercles 

 on the roots of certain leguminous or soil improving plants. 

 Both Nitragin and germ- laden earth were very profitably used 

 in our experinents. 



Crimson clover inoculated with clover Nitragin afforded 

 a crop of 4,057 pounds of hay per acre, while ordinary or un- 

 treated seed gave (including many accidently inoculated 



