BACTERIA
January, February, and March passed with more than the usual snow and
rain,--fully ten inches of precipitation; but the spring proved neither
cold nor late. During these three months we sold butter to the amount of
$1283, and $747 worth of eggs; in all, $2030.
The ploughs were started in the highest land on the 11th of April, and
were kept going steadily until they had turned over nearly 280 acres.
I decided to put the whole of the widow's field into corn, lots 8, 12,
and 15 (84 acres) into oats, and 50 acres of the orchards into roots and
sweet fodder corn. Number 13 was to be sown with buckwheat as soon as
the rye was cut for green forage. I decided to raise more alfalfa, for
we could feed more to advantage, and it was fast gaining favor in my
establishment. It is so productive and so nutritious that I wonder it is
not more generally used by farmers who make a specialty of feeding
stock. It contains as much protein as most grains, and is wholesome and
highly palatable if properly cured. It should be cut just as it is
coming into flower, and should be cured in the windrow. The leaves are
the most nutritious part of the plant, and they are apt to fall off if
the cutting be deferred, or if the curing be _done carelessly_.
Lot No. 9 was to be fitted for alfalfa as soon as the season would
permit. First, it must receive a heavy dressing of manure, to be
ploughed under. The ordinary plough was to be followed in this case by a
subsoiler, to stir the earth as deep as possible. When the seed was
sown, the land was to receive five hundred pounds an acre of high-grade
fertilizer, and one hundred pounds an acre of infected soil.
The peculiar bacterium that thrives on congenial alfalfa soil is
essential to the highest development of the plant. Without its presence
the grass fails in its chief function--the storing of nitrogen--and
makes but poor growth. When the alfalfa bacteria are abundant, the plant
flourishes and gathers nitrogen in knobs and bunches in its roots and in
the joints of its stems.
I sent to a very successful alfalfa grower in Ohio for a thousand pounds
of soil from one of his fields, to vaccinate my field with. This is not
always necessary,--indeed, it rarely is, for alfalfa seed usually carry
enough bacteria to inoculate favorable soils; but I wished to see if
this infected soil would improve mine. I have not been able to discover
any marked advantage from its use; the reason being that my soil was so
rich in humus and added manures that the colonies of bacteria on the
seeds were quite sufficient to infect the whole mass. Under less
favorable conditions, artificial inoculation is of great advantage.
Wonderful are the secrets of nature. The infinitely small things seem to
work for us and the infinitely large ones appear suited to our use; and
yet, perhaps, this is all "seeming" and "appearing." We may ourselves be
simply more advanced bacteria, working blindly toward the solution of an
infinite problem in which we are concerned only as means to an end.
"Why should the spirit of mortal be proud," until it has settled its
relative position with both Sirius and the micro-organisms, or has
estimated its stature by view-points from the bacterial world and from
the constellation of Lyra. Until we have been able to compare opinions
from these extremes, if indeed they be extremes, we cannot expect to
make a correct estimate of our value in the economy of the universe. I
fancy that we are apt to take ourselves too seriously, and that we will
sometime marvel at the shadow which we did not cast.