The record-union., 1897-12-01
THE NITROGEN MYSTERY.
MIR. OLCOTT EXPLAINS A FEAT.
URE OF PLANT GROWTH.
How Nitrogen Assists the Farmer
and Gardener Shown in an
Illustration.

Alongside James B. Olcott's turf gar
den in South Manchester runs strip
of turf which he calls grass road. Ii
has no fancy look about it, but IT Is
at all times in prime condition. Mr..
Olcott was asked yesterday how IT nap
pened that this stretch of turf, to which
he gave no particular attention, thriVeu
SO vigorously. In reply, he said:
You want the nitrogen mystery !!
Well-a glimpse Of the subject for The
Courant' 1t is the open secret OF the
centuries you are after, what man, who
continually runs from his grandmother
sod, is always forgetting. To give You
an idea of it all shall need to tell you
"a long story, and it is as broad as it is
long.
'Dou you see that grass road? Good
enough turf, isn't it? You can't match
it in these. States. It is composed of
the plants whose seeds came from the
old countries in the hair and stockings
of our ancestors That is the turf of
our daddies. Had we minded our eyes
had we continually asked the careful
farmer to grow and keep that sort or
sward for us-instead of climbing some
other wayne might have had it all
over the country any time these 2UO
years.
"Once, every old farmyard in or near
the Connecticut Valley was covered
with just such turf as that, and the
farm ministers Of the old days dlstrlb-
uted, from their pack saddles, seeds Of
it across the State for vigilant matrons
and maidens to bleach their linen on
That grass road has received no
manure for thirty-five or forty years.
Not a plant remains in it which my
father Willingly sowed. but he kept
sheep, his water-meadows were covered
with fine red-top and white clover, and
his manure was full of their seeds.
Eighteen years ago James Cheney
we must have names-offered me Sl0O
with pay for cutting and hauling-for
the turf of that road He didn't get it;
81 900 would not have bought it, be-
cause / meant just this business With it
then. Then we We're growing straw
berries on each side of the road and the
rough sward was largely of blue grass.
BY close machine grazing and weed
ing-doing the work of a flock of sheep
we have developed the dormant grass
es of the soil-the very handwriting Of
our grazing ancestors.
That road had three sorts of chick
weeds in it. You don't see them, but
there is enough there yet to destroy all
the grasses and clovers, if it was man.
aged as your lawns and parks are man
aged, or your pastures-Where every
thing is permitted to go to seed that
cattle won't eat.
Right alongside, you see the turf
garden proper, receiving fertilizers ev-
cry year, with some better turf grasses
in it, no doubt, than are in the grass
road-which, as / said, has received no
manure. And the grass road feeds it
self better than I have fed the turf
garden proper with annual and semi
annual top-dressings of commercial fer
tilizers. The garden is often nearly de-
stroyed in parts by rusts and worms;
the road is never rusty, and if worms
are there they do not kill anything.
Why? Because, as / believe of the
small clovers-nOt permitted in the
turf garden proper-which work up nj
ire or nitrogen from the soil and air!
Nitre or nitrogen is what the boy looked
for at the end of the rainbow. Nice
graZiers worship some form of srpall
clover all over the world. Secretary
Wilson will spend the entire revenues
of the seed division in 1egumes and
sodded plants" they say. When | was
a small boy Cooper McKee's sand lot
was the emblem of sterility. But when
he got it into tle-boxes-which has
fine fat bacteria of nitrifica ton, you
will observe-then it would soon grow
mulleins and be ready for a slim crop
of rye again.
MY friend Professor Brewer didn't
find white clover in Greenland, but an
other observer of the party did-in the
best turf there. Justice Strachan of
Emu Plains, Australia, retired grazier,
was fondest of a native trefoil, when
we were cutting sods under umbrellas.
Mons. Joseph Niard, 161 Rue de Cha
teau, Paris, Norman horse breeder and
dairyman, worshipped the small Glow
ers When / was cutting sods of
fescue from the Paris fosse and he was
keeping the gendarmes off he would
point with his toe to some small clover
every time.
1T was precisely so in Wales, and
in Norwich, Conn, where three Welch
ladies on one divan would have it that
clover must be in a lawn. My friend,
the eminent scotsman of Copenhagen,
since deceased, showed me hundreds Of
the clovers Of all nations carefully
grown from their own seeds, and he
called my attention to the sorry fact
that the American clovers We're poorest
and most feeble in their growth. Free
seeds are part of our beautiful system
and saving off the very limb We all
stand upon But for the favor of the
custom house the sods we imported
We're dutiable.
Just now 1 said men worshipped the
small clovers and / believe it. In
Africa, where Livingston was given
twenty brown, twenty black, twenty
red and twenty white heifers by a ma
tive chieftain, and it was a sign of
skillfuI stock breeding outside of the
herd books, / should expect TO fini
some form of small clover worshipped
by devoted African graziers.