Waterbury evening Democrat., 1892-05-03
INocuLATlNa PLANTs.
Furnishing Bacteria to Promote Phenonl-
 enal Growth.


 Furnishing Bacteria to Promote Phenom-
 enal Growth. A most extraordinary discovery has recently engaged the attention of the department of agriculture. It relates to the artificial inoculation of growing plants with bacteria. Sooner or later it is sure to prove of enormoussadvan- tage to farmers and gardeners, who will be able to assist nature in produc- ing crops by a method never dreamed of hitherto. It seems surprising enough to learn that plants which bear pods, such as pease and beans, depend largely for their healthy growth upon bacteria. These little vegetable organisms attach themselves to the rootlets, upon which they feed, forming about each of their colonies woody tubercle, just as the species that engenders consumption in human beings and other animals forms tubercles in the lungs. Thus the roots, on which such germs find lodgment, are found to be more -or less covered with little warty excresences. Until lately it had never been imagined that the tubercles were of use to the plant or that the latter relied in any degree AOA AOS "CEAbLC uEOA GLC WA1Ch form them. .. Nevertheless such has been shown to be the fact. Plants are composed largely of nitrogen, and the bacteria described absorb this element from the air Indeed, this is the only way in which pod-bearing vegetables can pro- cure free nitrogen from the atmos- phere. They depend for this upon their f,s4 d.. Sa1. L .1l II the precious material and store it away in the root tubercles, from which it is transferred to the branches and leaves. | taking part in building them and thus assisting development.
 These matters have been determined by very interesting experiments. Ii has been found that peas or beans l grown in sterilized sand, which o1 course contains no bacteria, developed no tubercles on their roots and slowly starved. However, by inoculating the l plant with the proper germs, they were rendered healty and productive. In other words, they could not get along without nitrogen, of which there was none in the soil; but the bacteria were able to procure from the air enough for them to live upon. It was simply a l HuCoUAOA O4 O1OAA "1C1 servants to do the work.
 There are several ways of accom-. plishing this. One method, for the sake of scientific accuracy, was to take a tubercle from bean rootlet, cut ii open, extract from it a small particle of it's substance, and propagate from a bit of this in gelatine, considerable quantity of the bacteria desired. Then some of them were squirted through little glass pipe among the roots of the plant, with which trlal was being made. The same results were obtained, however, by simply watering the soil slightly with a small amount | of dissolved earth taken from about q healthy bean-vine.
 } It must be understood that each kinC of pod-bearing plant has it's own species of bacteria upon which it depends for 8 supply of free nitrogen from the air } The tubercle germs of pease do not pro- duce tubercles in beans, and, therefore are of no use to them. The various ] forms of misunderstanding bacteria are ) not all found in every soil. In { field where beans have been cul- tivated for a long time there may be no tubercle germs flor pease . at all, or vice versa. Accordingly, the farmer would be likely to find change from one crop to the other a disma failure, unless he knew enough to pro cure some earth from the proper place mix it with water, and thus microbe ) seed the land for the new vegetable. This is the way which the farmer o. the future will inoculate his land fol whatever sort of pod-bearing crop he may desire to raise. To demonstrate how this may be done with success narrow strips have been planted in ex perimental fields with beans and pease Some of the strips were treated in th' manner described, while others were let alone. The results were astonish ing. All plants which had been mi cro-seeded were easily distinguisha ble, even at a distance, by thei greener color and larger size. In deed, where the most assistance O this sort had been bestowed, growtl was excessive. so that the plants crowd ed each other out. The inoculation simple and inexpensive as it was, haG the same effect as would have been SC cured with the aid of considerable quantities of manure containing nitro gen.
 Certainly the importance of this nev discovery can hardly be over-estimate'
 when it is considered that in the futur h the agriculturist will be enabled b. s artifice to derive from the atmosphere ,, through the assistance of microscopi @ organisms, greatly increased contribu t tions to the growth and bearing of hi e crops.-St. Louis Globe Democrat.
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 Q The petunia originally came iron . Brazil, where it now grows wild, bu |. the flower in wild state presents di1