142 CLOVER CULTUKJ& 



that plants obtain nitrogen from the air, the fear of starvation for tht 

 over-populated earth of the future may be ignored. That research will 

 bring the brighter answer to this problem, there seems to be most excel- 

 lent reason to believe.* 



In 1891 we visited the celebrated Experiment Station con- 

 ducted by Sir J. B. Lawes, of Rothamstead, England, the 

 oldest and in many respects most complete experiment station 

 in the world, and found that not only had this distinguished 

 experimenter and his scarcely less distinguished assistant, Dr. 

 Gilbert, full faith in the capacity of clover and other legumes 

 to obtain nitrogen from the atmosphere, but that their experi- 

 mental grounds furnished ocular demonstration of the truth of 

 this theory. A large number of plots had been sown with the 

 clovers, peas, beans, lupines and other legumes, and fertilized 

 more or less with nitrogen, while each alternate plot on the 

 same kind of soil, to which no nitrogenous fertilizers had been 

 applied, was sown with the same plant. In very few cases 

 could we detect the slightest difference in the plant, visiting 

 them as we did at the period of their greatest luxuriance, 

 showing conclusively that though much nitrogen might be 

 applied, the legumes found it easier to assimilate the nitrogen 

 in the atmosphere than that in the soil. We found the lead- 

 ing scientific agriculturists in Belgium and Scotland holding 

 firmly to the same belief, so that the capacity of the legumes 

 to supply themselves with nitrogen from the atmosphere is 

 not a theory held by a few men here and there, but is now the 

 accepted belief of the agricultural world, and is regarded as 

 among the very greatest discoveries of the age. 



The results, both scientific and practical, of the above 

 investigations demonstrate that clover receives its nitrogen, 

 not from the soil in which it grows, except in the earlier 

 stages, perhaps, but from bacterial action in the tubercles 

 found on the root of the clover plant, and that all the legumes, 

 such as beans, peas, etc., derive their nitrogen in the same 

 way. It leaves, however, the precise method in which the 

 bacteria obtain the nitrogen from the only source possible, 

 the atmosphere, still unsolved. It, however, explains some 

 things which have sorely puzzled practical clover growers 

 who never heard of these investigations. It goes far toward 

 explaining why it is that when clover is sown on new lands, 

 the plants seem to take on a vigorous growth for a week or 

 two and then dwindle away and die. This was our experience 

 for some years in sowing clover on new lands, both on the 

 raw prairie and in cultivated fields, and we have no doubt it 



*A detailed account of Prof. Atwater's experiments maybe found in the second 

 annual report of the Storrs School Experiment Station, Storrs, Connecticut, published 

 In 1889. 



