, 1906-06-12

or fields that were not treated the same
season we sowed and treated others, and
so cannot give definite comparative re-
suits in regard 10 yields or heights OF
plants. From observation from season
to season, we satisfied ourselves that it
was necessary to inoculate, and have
done so since with fine results. We now
have no yellow, sickly fields for n or
two seasons after they are sown as we
did at first"
In a Farmers Institute address by Mr..
Fairfield, published by the Farm aud
Ranch Reviesv, the following account is
given OF his experience:
Five years ago we sowed five acres
on fresh breaking along with oats, and
the results were much better than we had
hoped for. The oats choked the plants
so that they were very small and weak
when the winter set in, and as a result
they w~inter-killed. The next year we
sowed twenty acres, along with a nurse
crop, the land being in better condition.
The growth was very patchy and disap-
pointing and the plants nearly all turned
a light green color. This was cut, but
there was practically no hay to cut. The
next year the growth was the same and
the patches were in the same places, and
after irrigation these patches became
larger, the new growth always being on
the down hill side of the old patches,
showing that incubation of the soil
with soil from an old alfalfa field was
necessary in order to supply the bacteria
which are found in the little nodules on
the roots OF legumes, i. C., plants that
bear their seeds in pods. After inoculat-
ing with this bacteria infected soil at the
rate of about 100 pounds to the acre, the
patches disappeared in an excellent and
healthy growth all over the field as fine
as | have ever seen in Utah, Wyoming,
or Colorado. Nitrogen in combination
with other elements is as essential to the
growth of plants as in the production Of
heshy tissues of animals. The bacteria
above referred to are able to take the
free nitrogen from the air and anu
~facture it so that the plants can use it as
food, thus obtaining a most expensive
result the soil is left richer after a crop
of alfalfa has been taken from the land
than before it. Nitrogen otherwise
would have to be obtained by the decay
ing of vegetable matter in the soil. The
growing of alfalfa is a very easy way to
enrich the land and particularly the fields
farthest from the buildings, where it
would be considerable trouble to haul
manure.
"In most old soils these bacteria are
present, but not in a new soil such as
ours. They can be supplied either by OBJ
|~taining soil from other fields where al
falfa has been grown or by pure culture,
which can be had from the Department.
of Agriculture at Edmonton, with direc-
tons how to use it."
About two years ago the U. S. De-
partment of Agriculture began to send
out pure cultures of nitrogen fixing bac-
terra, with directions for applying them.
generally failed that the method of dis
tributing these bacteria on dried cotton
has been abandoned and they are now
trying solutions containing the cultures
Bulletin No. 40 gives a general account
of the new method, where incubation
will probably succeed and where it will
fail. The New York Agricultural Ex-
pertinent Station at Geneva took up an
investigation of the commercial cultures
on the market and have published the re-
suits in Bulletin No. go. They tried a
great number of packages of inoculating
bacteria for different legumes as sold on
the market and found that such pack
ages were worthless for practical inocu-
i%lation." These trials were made in five
Laboratories situated in different parts o.
the country and may be considered con
elusive evidence. They make it clear
that the principle of incubation is al
right, but hat the method used by those
who have the commercial article for sale
is wrong, and farmers who buy these
commercial cultures are simply throwing
their money away. 1t is to be hoped that
the new method adopted by our Depart
ment of Agriculture and that now in use
in Canada may prove more successful.
Anyone in Wyoming who does not find
nodules on his alfalfa roots and wishes
to try incubation is warned not to pur-
chase the cultures offered by seedsmen,
5 but either try soil for incubation or
obtain the samples of pure cultures from
the government. B. C. B.