The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1906-08-15

afflict animals and mankind are
caused by the work of these minute
plants. The fire blight on our pear
trees is caused by bacillus Zone bac-
terial form) which gets in through
blossoms in spring, being carried on
the feet of bees and other insects
which have come in contact with the
diseased sap. Then they grow down
ward in the young forming tissues be
tween bark and wood and finally, If
not checked by cutting the limb ahead
of them, will destroy the whole branch.
These bacilli are SO minute, and are
so plentiful in the sap of diseased
pear limb as to make it look milky
to the naked eye. They are so small
that it would take 1900 of them, end
to end, to make a circle around the
period that closes this sentence"
The foregoing statement is so clear
that it will help to dispel the erron-
eous ideas about bacteria. Now, it is
these minute vegetable organisms that
gather the nitrogen of the air and
work it over in the roots of the le-
gumes before mentioned. AS formerly
stated, nearly four-fifths of the atmos-
phere is nitrogen. There is, there
fore, an inexhaustable supply of this
indispensable element of fertility. The
only thing lacking is to put this nitro
gen of the air into available form.
Plants, although surrounded by this
inexhaustable supply of nitrogen, will
die, for it can not be taken in through
the leaves as carbon is. The nitrogen
must be worked over and then taken
in through the roots.
For a long time in the history of
farming it was a great mystery why
some kinds of plants exhausted the
soil and some built it up and made it
richer Wheat, oats, barley, rye, tim
othy and corn depleted the soils, but
peas, beans, vetches, lupines and clov-
ers built it up. This fact was known
long before the reason for these re-
suits were known. 1t is not yet fifty
years since attention was turned to a
solution of this difference in plants
and scarcely forty years since the
work of bacteria in this nitrogen gath
ering was even suspected, much less
understood. Prof. F. H. Storer, pro-
fessor of agricultural chemistry in
Harvard university, in his valuable
work entitled agriculture in Some
of It's Relations to Chemistry" Vol.
II, gives a complete history of the
discovery of the work of bacteria in
storing up nitrogen in the nodules on
the roots of legumes. 1t is not neces-
sary to know all this history in order
to know how to use the legumes to get
these valuable results.
1t is very important, however, to
know what plants can perform this
wonderful work and how they do it.
l will try to illustrate this matter.
Many persons in the northwest, and
especially in the arid regions where
alfalfa grows so luxuriantly know that
old alfalfa fields when plowed up are
enormously rich. They don't know
why this is SO and are not aware that
the same richness can be secured by
using other legumes than alfalfa. Some
one may ask what difference it makes
whether they know or not. 1t makes a
great deal of difference, as I shall
show. Alfalfa is hard to get out of
any field and it is almost impossible to
get it out of an orchard. 1t is, there
fore, a hazardous business to sow al
falfa in an orchard if we ever expect
to get rid of it. Now, alfalfa is a
legume and bacteria can work on it's
roots and gather nitrogen from the air
and work it over into the available
form. But red and crimson clovers
are also legumes and bacteria can do
the same thing on their roots. The
same is true of the vetchos, of which
there are many varieties. Red clover
and the vetches can be cleaned out of