138 The Ottawa Naturalist. 



diluting it with sufificient water and sprinkling the seed with the 

 fluid ; and secondly, by treating a quantity of soil with a dilute 

 solution of the preparation, allowing the soil to dry and then 

 spreading it evenly over the field to be inoculated, which is then 

 deeply harrowed 



It is yet too soon to speak of results, but the probabilities 

 are that the experiments now being carried on in Germany and 

 England with this agent will prove successful. The knowledge 

 of the conversion of inert nitrogen by the instrumentality of 

 bacteria and the legumes into a form readily convertible for the 

 growth of cereals, root crops and fruits, is certainly the most 

 valuable gift that science has made to agriculture this century> 

 and Dr. Nobbe, if successful in his experiments, will have earned 

 the'thanks of the farming community for giving them a practical 

 application of this knowledge — a cheap method of entrapping 

 this, as far as most farm crops arc concerned, valueless nitrogen. 



BOOK NOTICE. 



Economic Entomology /(?r///^ Farmer and Fruit-growers and 

 for use as a text book in Agricultural Schools and Colleges ; 

 by John B. Smith, D. Sc. 



Practical Entomology, or the study of insects and their life- 

 histories with a view of controlling or preventing altogether the 

 ravages of such species as injure cultivated crops, may be called 

 a new science. In no country has so much good work been 

 done in this line as in North America so that to-daj^ it may be 

 fairly said that any farmer or gardener in the United States or 

 Canada who finds his crops are being injured by insects pests 

 can, upon applying to accessible authorities, be pretty sure of 

 receiving reliable information as to the best methods to adopt to 



