The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-06-03
INCUBATION OF PLANTS.
An Innovation in Artificial Methods OF
Assisting Nature to Produce.


Assisting Nature to Produce.
1t seems surprising enough to learn that
plants which bear pods such as peas and
beans, depend largely for their healthy
growth upon bacteria. These little vege-
table organisms attach themselves to the
reotlets, upon which they feed, forming
about each of their colonies woody tuber
Gle just as the species that engenders con-
sumption in human beings and other ami
mails form tubercles in the lungs. Thus
the roots on which such such germs find
lodgment are found to be more or less COW
cred with little warty excrescences,. Until
lately it had never been imagined that the
tubercles were of use to the plant, or that
the latter relied in any degree for its vel
fare upon the parasites which form them.
Nevertheless, such has been shown to be
the fact, Plants are composed largely of
nitrogen, and the bacteria described alb
serb this element from the air. Indeed,
this is the only way in which pod bearing
vegetables can procure free nitrogen from
the atmosphere. They depend for this
upon their microscopic friends, which get
hold of 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 as
sisting development.
These matters have been determined by
very interesting experiments. 1t has been
found that peas or beans grown in steriled
sand, which of course contains no bacteria,
developed 10 tubercles on their roots and
slowly starved. However, by inoculating
the plant with the proper germs they were
rendered healthy 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
1t was simply a question of supplying
them with small servants to do the work
There are several ways Of accomplishing
this One method followed for the sake
of scientific accuracy was to take a tuber-
Gle from bean rootlet, cut it open, eX-
tract from it small particle of its sub
stance and propagate from a bit of this in
gelatine a considerable quantity of the
bacteria desired. Then some of them were
squirted through little glass pipe among
the roots of the plant with which trial was
being made. The same results were oh
tanned, however by simply watering the
soil slightly with a small amount of dis
solved earth taken from about healthy
bean vine.
1t must be understood that each kind of
pod bearing plant has its own species of
bacteria, upon which it depends for sup
ply of free nitrogen from the air The
tubercle germs Of peas do hot produce
tubercles in beans, and therefore, are OF no
use to them. The various forms of tubercle
making bacteria are not all found in every
soil. In a field where beans have been cul-
tivated for long time there may be no
tubercle germs for peas at all, or vice
versa Accordingly the farmer would be
likely to find change from one crop to
the other dismal failure, unless he knew
enough To procure some earth from the
proper place, mix it with water and thus
microbe seed the land for the new vege-
table.
This is the way in which the farmer of
the future will inOculate his land for what
ever sort of pod bearing crop he may 0e-
sire to raise. To demonstrate how this
may be done with success narrow strips
have been planted in experimental fields
with beans and peas. Some of the strips
were treated in the manner described.
while others were let alone. The results
were astonishing. All plants which had
been microbe seeded were easily distin-
guishable, even at a distance, by their
greener color and larger size. Indeed,
where the most assistance of this sort had
been bestowed growth was excessive, so
that the plants crowded each other out.
The incubation, simple and inexpensive
as it was, had the same effect as would
have been secured with the aid of consid-
cradle quantities of manure containing
nitrogen Washington Star