CONDITIONS FAVORING BACTERIA 141 



some vigorous sorts taking it much more rapidly than 

 others of the more moderate-growing kinds. 



All New Legumes May Need Inoculation. I once tried 

 to grow gorse plants in Ohio. Gorse is a common shrub 

 in Europe, bearing a yellow, pea-shaped bloom. Though 

 in good soil, still they refused to grow, probably because 

 I had neglected to bring their peculiar bacteria with the 

 seed. Whenever one is establishing clovers, cowpeas, soy- 

 beans or any new legumes, one is wise if he finds some 

 source of infected soil to start the bacteria at work. The 

 little white clover is the one thing spread by nature from 

 northern Canada to the Gulf, which has always its bac- 

 teria with it. It is astonishing how much inoculation 

 usually helps. I have growing in good garden soil, plants 

 of Cassia occidentalis, a common leguminous plant of 

 Louisiana, there called "coffee weed." It will grow there 

 nearly 6 inches a day and has nodules as large as peas 

 thickly studded on its roots. Here, on rich soil and dur- 

 ing weather as hot as Louisiana often sees, the growth 

 without nodules is no more than 2 inches in a week. 



Conditions Favoring Bacteria. Good agriculture is es- 

 sentially practice that favors helpful bacteria. When con- 

 ditions are right for them they are steadily gathering 

 nitrogen from the air, adding it to the soil, and it is then 

 taken up by plants. Experiment has shown that there 

 may be gathered by the legumes very great amounts of 

 atmospheric nitrogen, as much in one year as would cost, 

 were one to buy it, $30 or more, on one acre. Thus, 

 when legumes thrive, when the soil conditions are right 

 for them and the bacteria are abundant and active, one 



