ll>8 



element which costs 15 to IS ceuts a pound when bought as 

 ■cotton seed meal, nitrate of soda, ammonated guano, etc. 



^ INOCULATION. 



Tiie interior of these tubercles is swarming with micro- 

 scopic life, called germs or bacteria. These bacteria, which 

 IbeJong to the vegetable kingJom, may be regarded as the 

 Avorkmen in these fertilizer factories. A tubercle does not 

 develop on the roots of any legume unless the right kind 

 of germ, suited to that particular kind of plant, is present 

 on the seed sown or in the soil, ready to enter the tiny root. 

 For example, the writer has examined scores of samples of 

 crimson clover plants from all parts of Alabama that had 

 Tio tubercles on the roots. These clover plants without 

 tu))ercles, v\ere dwarfed, pale or yellowish, and showed the 

 ^rop tlras grown without tubercles to be complete failures. 

 Tlip greater [»art of several hundred failures with crimson 

 clover which the writer has investigated have been found to 

 be due to the absence of tubercles. (See Fig. 1.) 



Failures of this character need not occur. There is a 

 simple, invariably remedy. It is called inoculation. Inocu- 

 lation of this kind means the supplying of suitable germs 

 to the seed to be sown or to the soil where crimson clover 

 is to be gTOTSTi, so that these germs thus supplied may pene- 

 trate the roots of the young plant and cause tubercles to 

 develop. If the proper germ for causing tubercles on clover 

 be present in the soil there will be no need of artificial in- 

 oculation- 



iHowever, large numbers of local tests under our direc- 

 ^fcion imade in almost every county in Alabama, lead to the 

 conclusion that throughout most of Alabama the clover 

 germ is not already present in the soil. But this germ is 

 present in soils where any true clover has grown for several 

 y<aars and borne tubercles. Hence, the surest method of in- 

 'acnlatinjr crimson clover consists in sowing on the field 

 where this legume is to grow some soil taken from around 

 the roots of any true clover. One may use the upper two 

 .4>r three JM(Ches of such soil. The true clovers may be 



