Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1905-04-29
HELPFUL MICROBES.
BACTERIA THAT WORK IN THE
FIELDS FOR FARMERS.
Furnished Free by the Department of
Agriculture to Replenish the
Exhausted Soil with
Nitrogen.

Bacteria! The very word has an ON
nous sound. Every one instinctively
wishes to keep away from bacteria as
things of fear. says Youth Companion.
But there are good bacteria as we'll as
bad ones--"benevolent bacteria. that
ask nothing better than to work on the
farm, with no reward except that of
their own virtue. Uncle Sam thinks so
highly of this class of germs that since
August, 1903, the department of agri-
culture has offered to send them, free,
to the American farmer.
And II the farmer is wise. he will take
as many of them as he can get, and set
them to work in his fields as soon as pos
sible.
These Industrious and deserving mi
crobes may be pretty well described by
calling them nitrogen fixing bacteria, "
or in more cumbrous phrase. bacteria
OF the root nodules of leguminous
plants"
Any boy who lives on farm soon
learns that to restore the fertility Of
worn-out fields, clover or its cousins
must be sown. Cow-peas, yetches. al
ialfa are all good for this purpose. In the
rotation of crops to keep land from being
worn out clover or its equivalent must
come round every fourth year.
The farmer does not know why. but
he knows the fact The scientist knows
why. 1t is because clover is a nitrogen
producing crop. Down on its roots are
multitudes of tiny nodules, and in those
nodules are bacteria which have the
power to take in nitrogen somehow.
from the air and give it to the soil
Then the corn and wheat crop take this
nitrogen up and exhaust it, and the
field must go to clover or its related
crops again.
Almost one hundred million dollars
worth of nitrogen Is exported from
America yearly. it has been estimated.
in the form of grain. The American
farmer, besides his rotation of crops,
has been forced to keep putting nitro
gen back into the soil in expensive fer
tilizers. This seemed, to a certain clever
German scientist, rather a pity, as long
as bacteria exist which like the Job of
nitrQgenizing the ground. AS man has
harnessed steam and electricity, why
not train germs to do the farming?
So for nearly ten years these bacteria
have been under culture and experiment
by Profs. Noble, Hartleb, and others in
Germany and lately by Profs MacMil-
Ian and Burrill, in America. The Ger
mans wished to develop a high growth
of the germs on the roots of the legumin-
GUS plants in any soil The Americans
went further, experimenting upon wheat
and corn, to see If crop of grain could
not be made to grow itself and it's own
fertilizer at the same time-surely true
Yankee idea.
The most practical discovery. how
ever, is that of George T. Moore. BY his
process every farmer can grow the nj
trogen-fixing bacteria himself and ap-
ply them himself to his crop. He can
send to the department of agriculture
and get small packet of sterilized cot
ton, on which the germs are growing.
With this come two tiny packages OF
chemicals. One of these he dissolves In
a certain amount of water, anu drops in
the cotton, germs and all, to soak over
night. The next morning he pours in
the other chemical, and the germs de-
Velop 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 the ground, and the germs begin
their career of taking in nitrogen.
They will do 1t in land where 1t has
never been possible to raise good crop of
clover or cowpeas before, and they will
do it tenfold in ordinary fields The ex-
perimenters hope that the bacteria will
increase crops from i've to fifty per cent,
and do away with fertilizers.
II they can be cultivated on the roots
OF corn and wheat-and some Of the ex-
periments have been promising-the ro-
tation of crops can be done away with,
too, and grain-crops follow each other
without cessation upon the poorest soils.
All this seems like a fairy-tale. But
the fairy-tale of science often turns out
TO be sober truth At any rate, the
farmer who bitches his wagon to the star
II progress is a wiser man than he who
sneers at new ideas; and if bacteria can
be made 10 pay off the mortgage, they
ought to be welcomed eagerly all over
the land.