TINY PLANTS MANUFACTURE FERTILIZER 
years before Christ. Alfalfa was early introduced into 
the eastern part of the United States, where it languished 
and died. A hundred years later it was found that it had 
languished because it had had no bacteria to get nitrogen 
from the air for it. It was given those bacteria and now 
grows abundantly throughout the East. 
Alfalfa arrived in the East by the roundabout way of 
Mexico and California and by working its way more 
slowly than covered wagons traveled in going the other 
direction. Its slow progress, it afterward developed, was 
due to the fact that it took time for its helpful bacteria to 
develop in the soils of new regions. 
It was after alfalfa had succeeded in Kansas and failed 
in Illinois that a scientist in the latter state discovered 
the fact of its need for bacteria. He sent to Kansas for a 
ton of soil from an alfalfa field and spread it over an acre 
in Illinois. Alfalfa grew abundantly on that acre. From 
it bacteria were spread over many states and got the 
alfalfa crop started. 
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