174 LANDRETH— THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 



[May 4 



knew of the favorable results. Later on, intelligent observers con- 

 cluded that it was because of the deep rooting habit of plants of the 

 legume family ; that it was entirely the result of the collection out of 

 the three, four or five feet depth of soil to which the roots reached, 

 of all the potash there which was seized upon and drawn up by the 

 roots and concentrated near the crown within an inch of the surface, 

 and, no doubt, to an extent the theory was correct, but scientists 

 now tell us a new story and a most interesting one. No intelligent 

 farmer has failed to observe upon the roots of his clover or bean 

 plants that occasionally there is presented to his view a something 

 which looks like a diseased condition of the roots, a growth of 

 warts or nodules, sometimes four or five to a plant and sometimes 

 a hundred. Occasionally this will occur at one end of the field and 

 not at all on another field. 



The bacteriologists now tell us that these nodules are caused by 

 the attachment to the roots of plants of the leguminosse family of 

 certain bacteria, that these bacteria within the resulting nodules or 

 swellings absorb out of the air of the soil a portion of its introgen 

 and store it for the support of the growing plant itself, as also for 

 the succeeding year's crop and this stored nitrogen is now said to 

 be the principal secret of the imparted fertility to soil by the cultiva- 

 tion of a crop of clover. 



Some parties are now commercially developing these micro- 

 organisms, offering for sale in small sealed tubes portions of the 

 living cultures sufficient to develop an indefinite quantity, just as a 

 yeast cake which one may carry in his pocket may leaven sufficient 

 dough to inoculate a large amount. The commercial preparations 

 being mixed as directed in water, the solution may be used to inocu- 

 late as much soil as the solution will moisten, and this soil after- 

 wards mixed with four or five times its bulk, and the whole thinly 

 spread broadcast over that portion of the field to be inoculated; or 

 the system now most generally advised is to inoculate the seed 

 before planting it by subjecting it to a spraying or a bath. The seed 

 may be partially dried before sowing, or sown in its wet condition. 



The practice so far, to a large extent, is experimental, there 

 being various degrees of success and failure, but the day is close 



