SOIL INOCULATION 



earth, transform it or adapt it, or whatever 

 may be the process, no one knows what the 

 precise act is, — to change it from the nitrogen 

 of the air into the nitrogen suitable to be 

 taken up by the plant. 



The bacteria do not do this work merely to 

 store up supplies of nitrogen for their own 

 uses, as the chattering squirrel lays by his store 

 of nuts for the winter's fare. The bacteria take 

 the nitrogen, transform it, and send it through 

 the membranes of the plant into the very life 

 tissue, the nitrogen enriching the plant, and, at 

 the same time, enabling it, through its many 

 tubercles, to become a storehouse of nitrogen 

 as well. Down in the darkness by night and 

 by day, all through the life of the plant from 

 sprouting to harvesting, the tiny bacteria are 

 at work, needing no light and no air from 

 above ; for, so great are the atmospheric spaces 

 between the billions of particles of the soil 

 that there is a never-failing source of supply 

 always at hand. 



Many details of the life of the bacteria yet 

 remain to be determined, many of the details 

 in this marvelous act of nitrogen conversion, 

 one of the strangest and one of the most mys- 



35 



