12 
Colorado Experiment Station. 
little or no fixation could be accomplished; that the fourteenth inch sam- 
?row'th 1 nf7h h ln . mtrates ’ 'I 1 ' 1 n u ot carr y eno «gh to inhibit entirely the 
giouth of the nitrogen fixing bacteria, and that in No. 4, the condi- 
ions were very favorable for these organisms. 
Sample No. 5. 
betu J P n S thN Ple T aS p / ocured September 21, 1909, from an orchard 
e ween the irrigating furrows. The brown surface soil, a light clay 
am was removed and a section, including the second to sixth inch 
was taken In 1908 a few of the trees had died and the owner be- 
• r"N ha Possibly this had been caused by lack of fertility, had given 
the orchard a liberal dressing of stable manure. The following spring 
he ground from which the dead trees had been removed, one to two 
acres pei haps, along with seven or eight acres of the orchard, was sown 
o wheat, but to the dismay of all concerned this, too, failed to grow 
fifteen ^ pel ’ Cel E ever comin S U P- During the summer, 1909,’ 
fifteen to twenty-year-old trees died by the score, beginning early in 
the season and continuing late into the fall. A conservative figure 
trees" 16 damage done thls year would be th - e loss of 300 bearing apple 
the ^ Saw r. a continued spread of the burning, and already in iqn 
the attack is being renewed with increased vigor. 
In the culture solution, the growth took the form of a dull, almost 
there nU °Ther CUm ’ WIth patches of white, gelatinous material here and 
ether at Times "rh* sll . ght acld P r °duction with the odor of butyric 
ether at times. 1 he microbic flora consisted principally of large rods 
mycelial threads and many clostridium forms resembling closely if 
not identical with, Clostridium pastorianum. An increase of 3.0822 m. 
of nitrogen was obtained in thirty days. 
Sample No. 6. 
.. Tl ' e mater . lal f ° r thls test was taken from the top of a brown irri¬ 
gating furrow in a beet field. The surface crust was removed and the 
alfa flTio^At th-' t The SOil T aS a Sandy Clay and the field was in 
< talta in 1906. At this time complaints were received of the appearance 
o bare spots on which the alfalfa was dying out. The largest of these 
was horse-shoe shaped and about one-half acre in extent & The chief 
o^ts'aTdTt was nSt M Ce "T f bu ‘ I9 ° 8 the field was sown to 
oats, and it was not long before a number of brown patches mealv in 
pre a pared r ’for eV h e eT ed “ ^ pIaCeS ' When th ^ Iand was being 
1 epared for beets in 1909, there was nothing unusual to create one’s 
suspicion except the seepage. I visited the field in September and 
This 6 h^hown^ b c re SP ° tS surrounded by beets with immense tops, 
verv n Flg ’ /’ page I3 ' The stand had evidently been 
in y P a me Ce S °. me of the , ban \ en P Ia «s would average a half acre 
, ‘ ' e sod was mealy and high in nitric acid. That fall the 
he wIole S ?we n ntv ^ When 1 Saw k the next sllmm er, 
e wnole twenty-five acres was a total failure. 
