New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION, 39 
experiment with Dr. Emerson is conspicuous asthe single case 
in all of our experiments in which the soil from the Station 
alfalfa field apparently failed to produce any marked effect 
upon the inoculation of the plats. In this case the soil was 
held three months in storage in a dry place before being used 
and the germ content of the same probably suffered from exces- 
sive drying. We have learned of two similar failures where 
a bag of soil was held from one season to the next before being 
applied. 
The influence of the inoculating soil is brought out sharply 
when we consider the relative success of the plats which re- 
ceived the inoculating soil as compared with those which did 
not. Of the 36 check plats 10 produced enough hay to be con- 
sidered a success while among an equal number of adjoining 
plats to which inoculating soil had been applied 18 were suc- 
cessful. This is a somewhat higher proportion of success among 
the check plats as well as a smaller proportion of success among 
the inoculated plats than during the two preceding seasons. 
Where the numbers are so small considerable variations in the 
results are to be expected. 
It should not be inferred from these results that the effect of 
the inoculating soil is limited to the fields which were changed 
from a failure to a success. On the contrary, it produced a 
noticeable improvement in practically all fields except those 
where the proper bacteria were already present in sufficient 
numbers to meet the requirements of the plants. In some of 
the experiments which were recorded as a success without arti- 
ficial inoculation the adjoining inoculated plats produced even 
more successful crops showing that the natural inoculation was 
not up to the full requirements of the alfalfa. However, this 
latter difference probably would become less noticeable as time 
passed. 
SUMMARY OF EXPERIMENTS BEGUN IN 1905-07. 
The true situation in this State with regard to the need of 
inoculation in connection with the growing of alfalfa is best 
