THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VI. 241J 



Here is the probable reason: City lots are manured easily; they receive 

 dust, litter, everything, and among other things doubtless Mr. Johnson's 

 alfalfa plat secured the bacteria which the alfalfa roots need to enable 

 them to feed on the free nitrogen of the air. The right bacteria is to 

 the alfalfa plant what the bait can is to the small boy; it helps to catch 

 fish. The fish is the atmospheric nitrogen. Alfalfa plants are greedy 

 devourers of nitrogen. The protein of which alfalfa is composed is largely 

 made up of nitrogen compounds; without bacteria it is powerless to feed 

 on the free nitrogen and must fall back on the fixed nitrates or am- 

 monias of the soil. That is why alfalfa revels in barn-yard manures; 

 they feed it, and often, too they carry to it the bacteria that it needs. 



But alfalfa must have mineral elements, too — potash and phosphoric 

 acid and lime, and it seems from this bulletin that all these are rather 

 deficient in Illinois prairie soils, the phosphorus seeming to be the most 

 deficient. Lime, no doubt, is mainly useful in sweetening the soil and 

 making it a fit place for the abode of the bacteria; anyway we know 

 they will not thrive in a sour soil nor in a drowned-out soil, and that 

 brings up another idea: Is it not true that failure with alfalfa often 

 comes from the saturated condition of the soil in winter, when few Illi- 

 nois tile-drained farms are really dry enough for things to breathe in 

 them? There £-re regions in the gravel belt where drainage is perfect, 

 almost too perfect maybe for drouth conditions, and there to establish 

 alfalfa successfully it is only needed to know how to feed it and to intro- 

 duce the right bacteria into the field. 



Now take up the bulletin and study the tables of results a little. 

 Table 5 shows that without any treatment the first cutting made at the 

 rate of 1,313 pounds to the acre. With bacteria added to the soil the 

 yield was 2,563 pounds — almost double, you see, and that is not all. Had 

 the plots continued without bacteria their condition would have become 

 rapidly worse rather than better. But let us lime a plot; the result is 

 encouraging, 1,438 pounds of hay without bacteria and 2,875 with it. Lime 

 then pays well on that soil. Now try lime and phosphoric acid; the 

 result is 1,938 pounds; when bacteria are added to this we get 3,625 

 pounds — very nearly three times the result of the untreated plot! 



Take up another matter — the amount of nitrogen that the alfalfa 

 plant can secure from the air. When no bacteria are present the amount 

 is nil. When they are present the amounts fixed in one cutting vary from 

 forty to fifty-four pounds per acre. That means you are gainer through 

 the season of at least 100 to 200 pounds to the acre of nitrogen. What does 

 that mean, reduced to dollars and cents, to the man who needs more fer- 

 tility, larger crops on his farm? It means from $20 to $40 the acre of fer- 

 tilizing value given him by the alfalfa meadow! Do not stare incredu- 

 lously; it is true, gospel truth, scientific truth, practical truth, proved by 

 more than one practical experiment. I have often said that alfalfa was 

 the greatest soil enriched known, but that unfortunately, it would not 

 enrich poor soils because it would not thrive on them. It has enriched 

 Woodland Farm beyond our expectations and put our bank account out of 

 red ink. 

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