218 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



October, 



INOCULATING THE SOIL. 



As a Means of Effecting Its Adaptation to the 



Culture of the Clover Family.— How to Grow 



Red and White Clover in the West, and 



Alfalfa in the East and South. 



(J. E. Johnson.) 



IT HAS been said that the greatest 

 study of mankind is man; but the 

 next greatest study is the soil, for 

 upon the soil depends the preservation 

 of man. Of dust was man created; 

 from the products of dust, or the soil, 

 must his mortal body be fed all the 

 days of his life and unto dust shall 

 his mortal body at last return. 



Upon the condition of the soil de- 

 pends largely the success of the bee- 

 keeper. When two bee-keepers disa- 

 gree on almost any question very often 

 that term "locality" is used to prove 

 that both are right. What is meant 

 by locality? 



For my part I believe that any hon- 

 ey-producing plant will produce honey 

 or rather nectar, in one part of the 

 United States as well as in another, 

 if the soil and other conditions are 

 favorable to the growth of the plant. 



The clover family no doubt stands 

 at the head of all honey producing 

 plants where they do well. Let us look 

 into the condition of the soil for the 

 raising of the different clovers. There 

 is probably no other plant that re- 

 quires as much nitrogen as the differ- 

 ent clovers. One of the most essential 

 elements of the soil is nitrogen. Of 

 course, there are other elements such 

 as potash, lime, phosphorus, etc.. that 

 are necessary, btit nitrogen is the ele- 

 ment most often lacking. 



Now if we burn or cause to be con- 

 sumed l>y fire any vegetation the ashes 

 will still contain the lime, potash, phos- 

 phorus, etc., but the nitrogen will es- 

 cape to the air and is a total loss. In 

 form of fertilizer you can buy back 

 the other elements from one cent to 

 four cents per pound, but nitrogen will 

 cost from 13 to 20 cents per pound. 

 Wood aslics contains something like 

 600 pounds of lime to a ton; aOl) pounds 

 of potash but no nitrogen. Nitrogen 

 is always being lost, four-fifths of the 

 air is nitrogen and one-fifth oxygen. 

 When wo breath the air we consume 

 or burn up (»ne-t\ventieth of the oxy- 



gen that we inhale but no nitrogen. 

 Plants are benefited by both oxygen 

 and nitrogen, but no plant can of itself 

 gather nitrogen and retain it or place 

 it back in the soil. 



If the nitrogen could not in some 

 way be taken from the air and placed 

 back in the soil the earth would in 

 time become a barren planet. Legu- 

 minous plants can, however, when 

 aided by their own species of bacteria, 

 gather nitrogen in abundance from the 

 air and fix it in itself and thereby in 

 the soil. All clovers are of the legume 

 family and require much more nitro- 

 gen than any non-leguminous plant. 

 Clover can be grown well without bac- 

 teria if the soil be abimdantly fed 

 with nitrogen, but if so grown the clo- 

 ver will exhaust the soil far more than 

 any other non-leguminous plant. But 

 even the rich black prairies of Illinois 

 are not rich enough to grow any of 

 the clovers successfully without their 

 own species of bacteria; but I feel 

 certain that western Kansas or any 

 other part of the West could grow 

 both red and white clover if they 

 would get infected soil from the East 

 and inoculate their soil; and if the 

 East, North or South would get soil 

 from alfalfa fields in the West they 

 could grow alfalfa to perfection. 



I have made several trips to the 

 West in the last 15 years and it has 

 interested me very much to notice clo- 

 ver growing a little further west every 

 time. That line of clover has moved 

 from the far East. As it passed over 

 Illinois it even completely run out all 

 ])rairie grass, and now thousands of 

 acres which were once pi'airie grass 

 and have never been plowed, is all 

 white clover and blue grass. The two 

 always go together, because the white 

 clover gathers nitrogen and fixes it in 

 the soil for the blue grass as well as 

 for itself. 



' If the clover moves West ahead of 

 the bacteria, it perishes, and if the 

 bacteria moves ahead of the clover, it 

 also i)erishes. Both must move to- 

 gether. We have on record, however, 

 that General George Washington 

 raised large fields of alfalfa success- 

 fully and that he also was a bee-keep- 

 er to some extent, and that he ate 

 Iioney and corn bread regularly for 

 breakfast, o*\-ing to poor teeth. But 



