Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1916-06-22
F5HRM BOYS
: C0RNeR
A CURIOUS FACT ABOUT CLOVER
ROOTS.


If you should dig up a clump Of
alfalfa, or red clover, or sweet
clover with spade and wash the
dirt away from the roots very care
fully by moving it slowly in tub
of water, you would find, after all
the dirt has been removed, many
small, white, nearly round bodies
which look like tiny berries among
the mass of root fibers. If you
should examine them more close
ly, you would find that they are
grown fast to the roots as if they
were really part OF them
though you can see no reason why
the clover plants should need any
thing of this kind on their roots
at all. "a
The fact is that these little white
bodies are not a part of the root
proper any more than wart on
your hand is a part of your hand.
Indeed We might almost say that
they are warts on the roots of the
plants. However, there is this diff
ference: the wart on your hand
doesn't do you any good while these
peculiar little bodies on the clover
roots really do much good for the
clover plants to which they are at
tached.
Have you any idea how they can
be of benefit to these plants-for it
is really true that neither alfalfa,
nor clovels, Eor any others of the
legumes, Will do we'll unless these
little bodies, which are called no.
dulles, are attached to their roots?
Here is the answer.
These nodules are colonies of bac-
terra. Each one contains many thou
SANDS CT bacteria just as an ant
hill contains thousands of ants.
These bacteria, however, are motion
less; and they are so small that
they can be seen only with a power
full micro scope.
These bacteria take a little of
their food from the plant roots but
very much of it from the air which
circulates through the soil. This
focd which they take from the soil
air is nitrogen, of which we have
already heard; and they take so
much of it from the soil air that
they ale able to pass a large a.
mount of it on to the plant, itself.
When We remember that all plants
have great need of nitrogen and
that they remove it from the ground
so fast that the soil soon becomes
deficient in it, we see how import
ant tn Sc nodults really are.
1T there We're no nodules on the
roots of clover plants, then clover
would not make the soil more fer
tile; ard we slould have to depend
upon seme other more expensive
! way of building up our soil when
\ it becomes worn out.
\ 1t is rather curious that the mo-
! dulles on the different kinds of le-
gumes have difte ent kinds Of bac-
terra
The bacteria on the roots of red
clover, for example, are quite diff
felent from tho Sc on the roots of al
falfa, and so with other plants of
this family. However, alfalfa and
sweet cover, have the same kind of
bacteria on their roots; and this is
the ress sen why alfalfa often does
better after sweet clover. If sweet
clover has grown in field, the
soil contaiIs of course an abund-
ance OF the particular bacteria which
the alfalfa needs However it is
unnece ssary to grow a sweet clo-
Yer crop in field merely in order
to get the right kind of bacteria
in the soil. Many good farmers go
instead to a patch of sweet clover
alorg the road somewhere, dig up
some of the soil and scatter it on
their field, working it in with a
harrow or disc. This is called in
oculation. 1t provides the bacteria
for the alfalfa, which is sown lat
er, as we'll as if crop of sweet
clover had been grown in it.
TAKE, WATSON SnpL,I " SICE