Three methods have been adopted. By the first, as previously indicated,
the grower perseveres in sowing clover at short intervals in the
rotation. He may also add farmyard manure occasionally, and thus,
through the inherent power of multiplication in the bacteria, they
increase sufficiently to enable the land to grow good crops. By the
second method, inoculating is effected through soil which is possessed
of the requisite bacteria; and by the third, it is effected through the
aid of a prepared product named nitragin.
When fields are to be inoculated by using soil it is obtained from areas
which have grown clovers successfully quite recently, and which are,
therefore, likely to be well filled with the desired bacteria. In some
instances the seed is mixed with the soil and these are sown together.
To thus mix the seed with the soil and then sow both together broadcast
or with a seed drill is usually effective, and it is practicable when
minimum quantities of soil well laden with germs are used. In other
instances the soil containing germs is scattered broadcast before or
soon after the seed is sown. Considerable quantities of earth must needs
be applied by this method.
It should be remembered that each class of legumes has its own proper
bacteria. Because of this, inoculation can only, or at least chiefly, be
effected through the use of soils on which that particular class of
legumes have grown, or which are possessed of bacteria proper to that
particular species. In other words, bacteria necessary to the growth of
vetches will not answer for the growth of clovers, and _vice versa_. Nor
will the bacteria requisite to grow medium red clover answer for growing
alfalfa. In other words, the bacteria proper to the growth of one member
of even a family of plants will not always answer for the growth of
another member of the same. But in some instances it is thought that it
will answer. The study of this phase of the question has not yet
progressed far enough to reflect as much light upon it as could be
desired. It is certainly known, however, that alfalfa will grow on soils
that grow burr clover (_Medicago maculata_) and sweet clover (_Melilotus
alba_), hence the inference that soil from fields of either will
inoculate for alfalfa.
Nitragin is the name given by certain German investigators to a
commercial product put upon the market, which claims to be a pure
culture of the root tubercle organism. These cultures were sold in the
liquid form, and it was customary when using them to treat the seed with
them before it was planted. Their use has been largely abandoned,
because of the few successes which followed their use compared with the
many failures. But it is now believed that these cultures can be
prepared and used so as to be generally effective and without excessive
cost to the grower.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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