86 BOAED OF AGEICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



so long cultivated that they have become everywhere dissem- 

 inated. The same is true of the bacteria developino; in the 

 roots of common beans and peas. This is not likely to be the 

 case with the bacteria developing upon the roots of such 

 crops as are new in any particular Ipcality. Thus, for 

 example, the soya bean upon the grounds of the Storrs 

 School experiment station was a failure — clearly being 

 unable to appropriate nitrogen from the air — until the 

 appropriate bacteria were procured from Amherst, when a 

 seemingly magical change was produced. Attention is called 

 to this fact to emphasize this point : farmers should not l)e 

 too easily discouraged in their trials of new leguminous 

 crops ; they may succeed poorly at first, on account of the 

 comparatively- small number of their nodular bacteria pres- 

 ent ; Init may later prove profitable when these bacteria 

 become abundant, as they generally will in the course of a 

 few years. 



I knew nothing about these bacteria when I brought the 

 soya bean from Japan, but most fortunately I brought some 

 dust that got on the beans when they were being threshed, 

 and I evidently brought the bacteria, because I had plenty 

 of them after a few years in the soil at Amherst. AVhile I 

 do not know the history of Professor Phelps' soya bean, he 

 was unfortunate, evidently, in the first place, in not getting 

 the bacteria with the seed. I say this because, if you do 

 not have very good success in growing leguminous crops in 

 the first few years, you should not become discouraged, 

 because in a few years the bacteria will become abundant. 

 They have great reproducing power. 



As a fourth condition to the profitable utilization of the 

 leguminous crops, I have indicated that they should be 

 ofrown on soils containino* but a small amount of available 

 nitrogen. It appears to be a fact that when there is a sufii- 

 ciency of available nitrogen in the soil, they make little use 

 of that from the air. They can apparently secure the neces- 

 sary nitrogen from an availal)le store in the soil at less 

 expense of energy than is required to take it from the air ; 

 and, if you will allow the expression, they appear to be lazy, 

 like the rest of us, and will not take two steps to get what is 

 at hand after one. We must grow leguminous crops, then. 



