No. 4.] NITROGEN AND FERTILITY. 197 



Dr. Woods. That might very likely have been exactly 

 as the man thought it was. Still, men not in the habit of 

 making experiments make mistakes. The president of our 

 university has his own private farm, and he told me that 

 hay he got from 20 pounds of inoculated clover was vastly 

 superior to what he got from 20 pounds of uninoculated. I 

 went there and found the clover on the inoculated side was 

 about twice as tall as that on the uninoculated. But I went 

 two rods farther over on that piece, and the clover wasn't 

 any better than it Avas there. There happened to be some- 

 thing running right through that patch of clover, and a man 

 not used to experimenting would think simply of one thing. 

 It wasn't so on the whole field, it was simply some accident 

 of soil that caused that. 



I haven't any doubt that the inoculating of soil for 

 legumes, where we haven't grown that particular kind of 

 crop, is going to be of very great practical importance. I 

 am only sorry that the cotton culture method hasn't as yet 

 solved the problem, because in such a large percentage of 

 cases their culture didn't carry the right organisms. But 

 I think we are on the right line, and are going to have great 

 success in the near future. 



Mr. G. S. CoE (of Natick). I bought some pea culture 

 last spring that came from Pennsylvania, and I soaked some 

 peas in it as directed, and also soaked some cow peas. I 

 had used the cow peas the year before as an experiment, 

 and didn't get any vines big enough to raise pods on them. 

 This year I used the culture on the cow peas and the garden 

 peas both, and planted them near together, and I must say 

 that I believe that the vines from the culture-soaked peas 

 were more than three times as heavy as those where the 

 peas were not soaked ; and the cow peas were big enough 

 and grew rank enough, so that I got dry seed, which I have 

 saved. On the same land last year I couldn't get a pod. I 

 don't know as the culture had anything at all to do with it, 

 but for some reason or other I must say I had a splendid 

 crop. 



Dr. Woods. Did you look at the roots to see if they had 

 any root nodules on them or not? 



