208 



WHY INOCULATION IS NOT ALWAYS SUCCESSFUL. 



It occasionally happens that inoculation does not produce good 

 results. There are various reasons for this, but usually it is 

 due to the poor quality of the culture or to the condition of the 

 soil. The culture must not always be blamed. We all know 

 that some crops grow well on our farms, while others may grow 

 poorly or not at all. Bacteria are living plants, and in order to 

 enter the roots and produce nodules they must live and mul- 

 tiply in the soil. There are some soils in which the bacteria will 

 not live and no amount of inoculation will produce good results. 

 Or it may be that the particular leagume does not grow well in 

 the soil. In either case good results from inoculation cannot be 

 expected. The fault of the soil must first be corrected. It has 

 been found that an application of lime — about a ton per acre — 

 invariably benefits certain of the legumionus crops, alfalfa in 

 particular. In Bulletin 313 of the New York (Geneva) Agricul- 

 tural Experiment Station there are given some interesting results 

 on the benefit of lime for alfalfa. Sixty-four alfalfa fields, well 

 distributed over the State, showed that only eleven were suc- 

 cessful without lime, and all the fields except six were improved 

 by the addition of lime. 



STERILIZED SOIL CULTURES. 



As previously indicated, this department has developed a 

 method for distributing nodule-forming bacteria in pure culture. 

 It has found that in sterilized which, which it uses, these bacteria 

 multiply readily, as many as three billion being present in an 

 ounce of the soil. During the past two years a limited number 

 of these cultures have been distributed, principally for experi- 

 mental purposes. Because of the favorable results obtained the 

 department proposes to distribute the cultures for general use 

 among the farmers of the State. 



