The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1914-08-13
NEW METHOD FOR
ENRICHING SOIL

A. H. Hart. of Albany. Oregon Dis
tributor for the Western Soil Bacteria
Co., is here at the Oregon hotel in the
the interior of the new process
of enriching the soil by innoculat-
ing seeds with nitrUgtr bacteria.
Nitro Bac, the utR culture,
bearing the nitrogen gatt,-I7g bacter-
ia is, is called. Whethgr one intends
to use any Of the bacttr.s or not. the
booklets distributed by Mr. Hart fur
nish one the opportunity Of interesting
study.
A portion of the booklet is given
below.
Take an orchard. for instance, one
where the trees and tie fruit are not
all that they should be because the soil
lacks nitrogen. Ii is a very simple
thing TO supply that needed nitrogen by
means of "Ntro-bac. An you have
TO do is to plant a gre manure crop
of some inoculated lerluU. let US say
vetch. and pillow il under. You get the
finest kind of humus from the rOtting
vetch and, as il rots, 3. the nitrogen
which the eyer-busy ,aeteria have
stored in the nodules ], liberated into
the soil for the use of t.o trees, 10 the
great benefit of trees and fruit.
Legume crops have another great
value because of their strong and deep
root growth, which enables them TO
bring up from the sub-soll two plant
foods, potash and phosphorus. which,
next to nitrogen, are the elements
most important to plant life. The
legume roots also break up the soil and
make it more porous.
"Ntro-bac, a pure culture of acch-
mated nitrogen gstheriHg bacteria, is
put up in cans, each one Of which holds
enough bacteria to inOcuiate the seed
for sowing one acre.
All you have to do is to mix the con-
tents of can With a pint of pure,
fresh water and two tablespoons of
granulated sugar, stir them thorough
ly, pour the mixture over the seed and
mix them together until every seed is
slightly moistened, let them dry (but
never in the sunlight) and as soon as
you can handle them, sow in the usual
way.
Now, Just as soon as the seed sprouts
and the roots begin to grow, the bac
terra are right there on the job, sup
plying nitrogen from the start. This
is mighty important to the plant. You
see, if the bacteria were not there
with their supply of nitrogen from the
air, the tender roots would have to
begin search through the soil, looking
in all directions for the nitrogen which
the plant must have. The search for
nitrogen takes time and the top growth
has to wait until the supply begins to
come in. With inoculated seed, how
ever, the plant gets right down to the
business of growing. 1t has plenty of
its most necessary food, nitrogen, and
it grows quicker. stronger, taller and
better in every way because of it.
A legume grown from seed inocu
lated with "Nitro-bac" has good deal
more protein in it. and protein is the
stuff that makes beef and butter fat
when fed to stock. The more protein,
the more beef and butter fat.
If you should watch field of alfalfa,
one half of which was sown with unin-
oculated seed and one half with seed
inoculated with 'Ntro-bac, " you
would see the inoculated field sprout
quicker, grow faster and better, until
it would leave the other half of the
fields so far behind in the race that the
difference would be as plaiA and dis
tinct as if marked off with ruler.
"Ntro-bac" incubation acts direct
ly, and to the tremendous advantage
of the crop, on the seed of all legumin-
GUS plants. But it has just as good
an effect, although indirectly, on all
other crops.