Roots of the Mammoth Soy Bean 



This picture shows the nodules due to the nitrifying 

 bacilli, through which the leguminous plants are enabled to 

 perform a feat that other plants find impossible, — namely the direct 

 extraction of nitrogen from the air. Other plants might starve for 

 want of nitrogen, although bathed in the atmospheric ocean which is 

 so largely composed of nitrogen. But the legumes, thanks to the par- 

 ticular types of bacilli that colonize the roots, can get a supply, or a 

 partial supply, of nitrogen, without waiting for it to be com- 

 bined and made into soluble coMpounds. Nowadays cul- 

 tures of the nitrifying bacilli are sometimes 

 thrown on a field, as one sows grain or 

 the innoculated seed, put out under the 

 trade name "Nitragin", is sown. 



