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VOL. LXIX. No. 4046 
NEW YORK, MAY 14, 1910 
WEEKLY, Sl.00 PER YEAR 
The bottle holds 
to cover an acre 
company 
good to 
criticized 
“INOCULATING THE SOIL.” 
Buying Shares in Bottled Nitrogen. 
There is a man around here selling some fertilizer 
in a small bottle in liquid form, 
about a half-pint, and is supposed 
of ground. He is from 
the Standard Nitrogen 
Company. The bottle 
contains germs which 
are supposed to give the 
plant nitrogen. Is the 
company -a good one ? 
The agent is trying to 
sell me some shares in 
the business. Is his 
fertilizer good, and is 
what he says of this ma¬ 
terial true? 
New York l. m. 
Our advice is not to 
buy any shares. We do 
not know what stories 
this man is telling, but 
some of the statements 
formerly made by this 
were far too 
be true. We 
some of these 
statements, and repre¬ 
sentatives of the com¬ 
pany finally agreed to 
destroy their old circu¬ 
lars and print new ones. 
What they offer for sale 
in the bottle is not fer¬ 
tilizer at all, though they 
may try to make you 
think it is. The bottles 
probably contain the liv¬ 
ing germs or bacteria 
which work upon the 
roots of" legumes or 
pod-bearing plants, like 
beans, peas, clover, Al¬ 
falfa, etc. You will find 
that clover carries its 
seeds in a little pod, as 
well as beans or peas. 
Now these pod-bearing 
plants are able to take 
nitrogen from the air, 
provided these little bac¬ 
teria are on the roots. 
It is only through these 
germs that the nitrogen 
is obtained, and, if they 
are not already in the 
soil, the plants naturally 
cannot do so well as 
they would if the germs 
were present. These bot¬ 
tles are supposed to 
contain the live germs. 
1 lie liquid is put on 
the seeds, and when they 
are planted the theory 
tained a fertilizer which would provide plant food 
for all sorts of crops, like grain or potatoes, and 
change poor sandy land into very productive soil. Of 
course, they did not say this outright, but they said 
just enough to suit their purpose, and then left it to 
be thought out as they suggested. Their proposition 
WHEN THE BLOOM IS ON THE APPLE. Fig. 226 
is that the germs will 
develop as the plant grows, and thus give it the power 
to take nitrogen from the air. This is called inocula¬ 
tion, and has given fair results in many cases when 
these germs are active and strong. The bottle does 
not contain any fertilizer, any more than a cake of 
yeast, and it might be compared with that. When 
we last investigated this company they seemed to be 
trying to convey the impression that their bottles con- 
was to form a company to buy up great tracts of poor 
land at a low figure, improve, it by the use of their 
material, and then sell it at a high price. The scheme 
seemed to us like a dream, and we told representa¬ 
tives of the company that we should print parts of 
their circulars and comment on them if they con¬ 
tinued to send them out. On this, as we have said, 
they consulted Dr. Lipman, of New Jersey, and the 
Department of Agriculture. Both advised them to 
cut out all wild and absurd statements about the value 
of these bacteria, and they did so. At one time they 
engaged a well-known scientist to take charge of the 
bacteria. He now writes us that he has nothing to 
do with the company and does not guarantee any 
product they put on the 
market. Llis example 
is probably, a good one 
for you to follow. As 
for buying stock in the 
company, our advice is 
to let it entirely alone. 
At this time we re¬ 
ceive many questions 
from people who want 
to know just what “inoc¬ 
ulation” is. Bulletin 227 
of the New Jersey Sta¬ 
tion gives a very good 
statement regarding it. 
It seems that the plan 
of using soil from a 
fertile field of clover on 
new land was practiced 
years ago. Dr. Lipman 
says it was the custom 
in Finland to take fer¬ 
tile soil and scatter it 
over newly - cleared 
swamp land. This favor¬ 
ed the growth of clover. 
We now know that the 
fertile soil introduces 
the clover bacteria, but 
it was not until 1S86 that 
this fact was demon¬ 
strated so soil inocula¬ 
tion was understood. As 
long ago as 1774 agricul¬ 
tural writers noticed that 
clover was what was 
called a “ meliorating ” 
crop, and that it left the 
soil better for having 
grown in it. While this 
result was known, it 
was not until 1886 that 
German scientists proved 
that the legumes had this 
power to improve the 
soil, because they were 
able to take nitrogen 
from the air. Then it 
was demonstrated that 
this power of extracting 
nitrogen depended upon 
the bacteria mentioned 
above. This knowledge 
explained why the soil 
from good clover fields 
helped this crop on new 
ground, and this practice 
of adding the soil be¬ 
came known as inoculat¬ 
ing the ground, or soil 
inoculation. At first this 
inoculation was confined 
to using the soil from the 
fertile fields. There were some objections to this, 
such as the danger of introducing weed seeds, dodder 
and disease germs. This led to experiments with 
what are known as pure cultures. This means that the 
special bacteria which work on the roots of Alfalfa 
were separated and bred or developed alone. They 
were kept in some suitable material and sent out in 
sealed bottles, to be used as we have described. This 
