Little Falls herald., 1904-12-16
BACTERIA and FARMERS
Uncle Sam Send Good
Bacteria Free to
Them

, Priscilla Leonard contributes tn
, following we'll written article upol
"Bacteria for Farmers in the curren
, issue of the Youth Com panion:
Bacteria !! The very word has al
ominous sound. Everyone instructive
ly wishes to keep away from bacteri&
as thing of fear. But there are good
bacteria as we'll as bad Ones benevo
lent bacteria, that ask nothing be
ter than to work on the farm, with
no reward except that of their OWL
virtue. Uncle Sam thinks so highly o1
this class Of germs that since August,
1908, the department of agriculture
has offered to send them, FREE to the
American farmer.
And if the farmer ia wise, he will
take as many of them as he can get,
ana set them to work in his fields as
soon as possible.
These industrious and deserving
microbes may be pretty we'll described
by calling them nitrogen fixing
bacterial or in more cumberoas
| phrase "bacteria of the root nodules
of legumincus plants.
Any boy who lives on a farm soon
learns that to restore the fertility of
worn-out fields, clover or it's cousins
must be sown. Cow-peas, vetches,
alfalfa are all good for this purpose.
In the rotation of crops, to Keep the
land from being worn out. clover or
its equivalent must come around
every fourth year.
The farmer does not know why: bnt
he knows the fact. The scientist
knows Why. It is because clover is Il
nitrogen producing crop Down on its
roots arc mul,itudes Of tiny nodulos
and in these nodules are bacteria
which have the power to take in nj
trngen somehow, from the air, aud
give 1t to the soil. Then the corn and
wheat crops take this nitogen up and
exhaust it, and the fields must go 10
clover or it's related crop again,
Almost one hundred millions of dol
lars worth Of nitrogen is exported
from Am5rioe yearly. it has been esti
mated in ms form Of grain. The
American farmer. besides his rotation
OF crops, has been forced to keep put
ting nitrogen back into the soil in ex-
p.nsive fertilizers. This seemed, 70
certain German scientist, rather q
pity, as long as bacteria exists which
like the job Of nitrogeniz,ng the
ground. As man has harnessed steam
and electricity, why not train germs
to do the farming?
So for nearly ten years these bacter
il have been under cultuye and exper-
iment by Professors Noble, Hartleb,
and others in Germany, and lately by
Professors Macmillan and Burrill,
in America. The Germans wished tc
develop a high growth of the germs
on the roots Of the leguminous plants in
any soil. The Americans went further,
upon wheat and corn,
to see if crop of grain could not be
made to grow itself and its own fer
tilizer at the same time-surely a
true Yankee idea.
The most practical discovery, how
ever, is that of DR.. George T. Moore.
BY his process every farmer can grow
the nitrogenfzing bacteria himself
and apply them himself to his crop.
He can send to the department OF
agriculture and get small package
OF sterlIized cotton, on which the
germs are growing. With this come
two tiny packages of chemicals. One
Of these he dissolves in certain
amount of water and drops in the
cotton. germs and all, to soak over
night. The next morning he pours in
the other chemical, and the germs
develop until the water becomes
cloudy with them.
This milky fluid is then poured over
the seed of the leguminous crop the
farmer wishes to plant, the seed is
put into ground, and the germs begin
their career Of taking in nitrogen.
They will do it in land where it has
never been possible to raise good
crop Of clover or cow-pea before, and
they will do it tenfold in ordinary
fields. The experimenters hope that
the bacteria will increase crops from
five to fifty per cent, and do away
with fertilizers.
If they can be cultivated on the
roots of corn and wheat-and some of
the experiments have been promising
the rotation of crops can be done
away with, too, and grain crops fol-
low each other without cessation upon
the poorest sol @.
All this seems like fairy tale. But
the fairy tale of science often turns
out to be sober truth, At any rate,