SEED INOCULATION FACTS 
T HE use of Commercial Seed Inoculation by farm¬ 
ers and gardeners has become a common prac¬ 
tice in recent years. Growers of farm and garden Le¬ 
gumes have learned that Inoculation is inexpensive, 
easy to use and usually very effective in results. 
Agricultural authorities recommend it, and prac¬ 
tically every seed merchant today sells commercial 
Seed Inoculation in some form. At times during 
the past few years, articles have appeared and claims 
have been made concerning the advantages of cer¬ 
tain types or brands of these Commercial Cultures. 
Some of these claims are meritorious and well 
founded, yet none of them have brought out the 
really important things in a Commercial Inoculant. 
Seedsmen and the general public may be confused 
about these various claims and we believe you will 
be interested in the following information and 
FACTS. 
PREPARING COMMERCIAL INOCULANTS 
T HERE are a number of different methods in use 
for preparing Commercial Seed Inoculation 
Cultures artifically. Most of these are relatively simple. 
However, extreme care must be used to prevent con¬ 
tamination, and keep the strains true to type. With 
proper isolation, temperature conditions, the use of 
special foods, etc., a small number of nitrogen fixing 
organisms can be made to multiply and grow to 
enormous numbers—Millions—Billions—Trillions— 
Quadrillions—in a comparatively short time. 
Cultures prepared in this manner give satis¬ 
factory results when proper precautions are observed 
in their use. Rut if this multiplying or incubating 
process is not carried out under extremely careful 
supervision, contamination by bacteria or molds may 
develop to interfere later with the sale and use of the 
Culture. 
Original strains of organisms may also die out, or 
become ineffective. It is then necessary to prepare 
new strains of Mother Culture. 
A mother culture is one that is produced from 
actual root nodules taken from the roots of well 
inoculated legumes. 
