MANURES AND HUMUS IN SOIL. 151 
fields. Early in our experience we learned that 
wherever we applied a good coat of manure, there 
we got luxuriant alfalfa. This led us to feed lambs 
and cattle and to save the manure with care. Later 
study of the use of manure showed us that there was 
great waste when manure was let stand in the yard 
till fall before it was hauled out. Therefore we made 
practice of drawing it at once to the fields and 
spreading it nearly as fast as it was made. This 
practice we yet observe. 
Manure in the soil does very much more than add 
fertility. Probably we do not know nearly all that 
it does. First, doubtless it directly feeds the soil. 
There is nitrogen in manure, some small amount of 
potash, and a little more phosphorus, though not 
nearly so much phosphorus as there should be to 
make a balanced ration for plants. But manure 
brings in myriads of bacteria. These bacteria aid 
plant life and plant growth. Where manure is the 
special nitrifying bacteria abound. The bacteria too 
that attach themselves to alfalfa roots and clover 
abound much more in soils filled with manure. 
Manure Brings Inoculation —It is seldom if ever 
necessary to inoculate land for alfalfa when it has 
been well enriched with manure. I once saw a field 
sown to alfalfa in Canada that was so well inocu- 
lated that in six weeks after the alfalfa was sown 
the tiny nodules were found on the roots, and this 
field was the first sown in that neighborhood, nor 
was it artificially inoculated. It had simply been 
well manured. In other states I have seen the same 
