nts conducted in different parts of
the country and in different seasons, show an average gain in yield
of early tomatoes of about fifty per cent, with an average increased
value of crop of about $100 per acre. The rest of the report shows
similar results with other crops. (New Jersey Agricultural
Experiment Station, Bulletin 172.)

Joseph Harris says, "Some years ego we used nitrate of soda
cautiously as a top dressing on the celery plants. The effect was
astonishing. The next year, having more confidence, we spread the
nitrate at the time we sowed the seed, and again after the plant
came up, and twice afterward during a rain.

"Instead of finding it difficult to get the plants early enough for
the celery growers who set them out, they were ready three weeks
before the usual time of transplanting.

"At the four applications, we probably used 1600 lb. of nitrate of
soda per acre, and this would probably furnish more nitric acid to
the plants than they could get from five hundred tons of manure per
acre, provided it had been possible to have worked such a quantity
into the soil. Never were finer plants grown. As compared with the
increased value of the plants, the cost of the nitrate is not worth
taking into consideration."

As a means of fertilization without the use of artificial
fertilizer, soil inoculation has come. It has grown out of the
discovery of the dependence of leguminous plants on bacteria which
live on their roots. The discovery is one of the most important of
those made in modern agriculture.

It has received its greatest impetus in America, under the
experiments of Professor Moore of the United States Agricultural
Department.

The Department supplied free to farmers the bacteria for
inoculation. Now they supply it only for experimental purposes. A
laboratory has been fitted up for the work. The method is to
propagate bacteria for each of the various leguminous plants such as
clover, alfalfa, soy beans, cow peas, tares, and velvet beans. All
of these plants are of incalculable value in different sections of
the country as forage for farm animals. In the West, alfalfa is the
main reliance for stockraisers. The farmers of the East are trying
to establish it, but meet with difficulty chiefly for want of the
special bacteria which should be found on the roots.

The function of these bacteria is to gather the nitrogen of the air
and supply it as plant food. Without the bacteria the plant can get
onl