54 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Another great advantage from the clover is the winter covering 

 it gives to the soil and the protection it affords against frost in its 

 effect upon the roots of the trees. 



There are certain organisms that must be present in the soil upon 

 which the clover is dependent for its nourishment and which in turn 

 are nourished by the clover plant. It is in the decay of these organ- 

 isms that nitrogen is produced, the element that is so essential in 

 making new growi;h of wood upon which the best fruit buds are 

 produced. Clover has the ability or power to take the nitrogen from 

 the air, and, in connection with these organisms in the soil, builds 

 upon its roots the nitrogen necessary for its own use, and to leave a 

 surplus in the soil for the use of other plants, or for the future use 

 of the trees. Scientific discovery has brought to us a very great 

 aid in a process for manufacturing nitrogen bacteria, which may 

 be introduced to the soil artificially. A number of years ago this 

 discovery was made in Germany, but the process of making a pure 

 culture was not perfected and failed to a large extent. Our De- 

 partment of Agriculture took up the work later, and while it obtained 

 some very excellent results in sending out this inoculating germ, it, 

 too, failed at the point of making a pure germ and transmitting it 

 to farmers in an uncontaminated state; other forms of bacterial 

 growth sprang into life and the germs necessary for the nourishment 

 of the clover were found, in many instances, to have been entirely 

 destroyed. 



A recent method has been adopted by a scientist in New Zealand 

 who has succeeded in not only obtaining a pure and uncontaminated 

 germ, but has also a perfect system of transmission that will insure 

 vitality w'hen received by farmers. 



The process consists of putting a certain portion of these germs, 

 which are in liquid form, into a small quantity of water and sprink- 

 ling the same over seeds of plants or a certain amount of soil, which 

 is afterward sown or distributed over the land. The inoculating 

 germs at once spring into life and multiply in hundreds of millions, 

 and thus nourish the clover until its roots may become established 

 and take plant food from the soil. 



I now sow for the purpose of soil improvement eighteen pounds 

 of crimson and red clover seed in equal parts to an acre. The crim- 

 son clover being an annual plant will grow faster and make quicker 

 covering, while the red will hold through the winter much better. 



