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Updated: May 24, 2025
High hopes have been based upon the prospects of inoculating the soil over wide areas of land with small quantities of sandy loam, taken from patches cultivated for leguminous plants which have been permitted to run to seed, thus multiplying the nitrogen-fixing bacteria enormously.
These plants have on their roots nitrogen-fixing bacteria, which draw nitrogen from the air. Nitrogen is the great meat-maker and forces a prolonged and rapid growth of all vegetables. After manuring and plowing, harrow repeatedly with a disk or cutaway harrow until the soil is as fine as dust. Then you have a seed bed which will give the fine roots a chance to grow as soon as the seeds sprout.
Legume plants ought to grow well on that land, because the minerals are present in abundance, and, while lack of nitrogen in the soil will limit the yield of all grains and grasses, there is no nitrogen limit for the legume plants if infected with the proper nitrogen-fixing bacteria, provided, of course, that the soil is not acid.
"It should be kept in mind, of course, that the red clover has one kind of nitrogen-fixing bacteria, that the cowpea has a different kind, and that the soy bean bacteria are still different, while a fourth kind lives on the roots of alfalfa and sweet clover." "How much infected sweet clover soil would I need to inoculate an acre of land for alfalfa?" asked Mr. West.
I am glad that the nitrogen-fixing and nitrifying bacteria do business chicfly in the surface soil, because we are not prepared to correct the acidity to any very great depth. Second year Part oats or barley, part cowpeas or soy beans. Third year Wheat. Fourth year Clover, or clover and timothy. Fifth year Wheat, or clover and timothy. Sixth year Clover, or clover and timothy.
The only apparent exception to this is in case of legume crops, such as clover, alfalfa, peas, beans, and vetch, which have power to utilize the free nitrogen by means of their symbiotic relationship with certain nitrogen-fixing bacteria which live, or may live, in tubercles on their roots.
This action is carried on by the nitrogen-fixing bacteria, such as the clover bacteria, the soy bean bacteria, the alfalfa bacteria, which, by the way, are evidently the same as the bacteria of sweet clover, or mellilotus.
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