228 ALFALFA FARMING IN AMERICA. 
Hungary have been even more emphatic. Indeed, Liebig, more 
than fifty years ago, in speaking of one of the most common 
methods of destroying sources of available nitrogen, said: 
“Nothing will more certainly consummate the ruin of Eng- 
land than the scarcity of fertilizers. It means the scarcity of 
food. It is impossible that such a sinful violation of the divine 
laws of nature should forever remain unpunished, and the time 
will probably come for England, sooner than for any other coun- 
try, when, with all her wealth in gold, iron, and coal, she will be 
unable to buy one-thousandth part of the food which she has 
during hundreds of years thrown recklessly away.” 
To produce good crops of alfalfa without the nitrogen gather- 
ing bacteria requires exceedingly rich soil and liberal applica- 
tions of barnyard manure or other nitrogenous fertilizer. Even 
the rich black prairie soil of Illinois does not furnish sufficient 
available nitrogen for maximum crops of alfalfa. No other crop 
grown in Illinois requires such large quantities of nitrogen as 
alfalfa. 
Applications of available nitrogen to Illinois soil produce 
crops of alfalfa which yield from two to four times as much hay 
as crops which obtain all of their nitrogen from the natural 
supply of the soil. The inoculation of Illinois soil with the 
proper alfalfa bacteria enables the alfalfa to feed upon the in- 
exhaustible supply of free nitrogen in the air and the inoculated 
soil produces just as large crops of alfalfa as soil which has been 
heavily fertilized with commercial nitrogen. Nitrogen costs 
about 15 cents a pound in commercial fertilizers, and about 50 
pounds of nitrogen are required to produce one ton of alfalfa 
hay and the weight of the free nitrogen in the atmosphere is 
equal to about 12 pounds to each square inch of surface of the 
earth. 
In Summary.—Nitrogen is constantly being 
drained out of the soil by growing crops. Wheat, 
maize, oats, hay, nearly all farm crops take out nitro- 
gen. It is gathered together in the grains; a grain 
elevator represents the fertility of many a field. It 
goes to the cities; it becomes the food of man. Ow- 
ing to our wasteful practice, hard to reform in mod- 
ern civilization, the nitrogen waste is poured into 
the sea. Soon would the soils of the world become 
