Pure Culture Experiments 235 



the old legume-earth method. With proper care, the 

 use of legume-earth gives us an assurance of success 

 of which we are by no means certain from the use of 

 artificial cultures. The careful trials certain to be made 

 in the near future with the new nitragin of the German 

 investigators will enable us to determine whether it is 

 so much superior to legume earth, as the published 

 reports lead us to suppose. It would also be desirable 

 to compare the new nitragin with the Hquid cultures 

 as well as the agar cultures prepared in the United 

 States. 



Alinit. — Soil -inoculation has also been attempted 

 in the case of bacteria other than those forming nodules 

 on leguminous plants. Under the 

 name of alinit, there was placed ^m^'^ff''^?:^ 



on the market in 1897 a material 

 purporting to be a pure -culture 



Bacillus Ellenbachensis. This organ- 0^-^--:''''."'''>"^ 



ism was isolated by Caron, the 5.;^ 39, ^Unit bacteria 

 owner of the estate Ellenbach in (.Bacterium Eiimbach- 



Germany. It was claimed by him 



to be one of the non-symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria. 

 Alinit was investigated and tested by numerous investi- 

 gators and was found incapable of fixing atmospheric 

 nitrogen. 



Experiments were likewise conducted with the nitro- 

 gen-fixing azotobacter species with negative results. 

 To these might be added the records of inoculation with 

 nitrifying and other soil organisms. All of them usually 

 failed to yield encouraging returns. We are, therefore, 

 forced to conclude that while the future may see grati- 



