Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 63.djvu/341

Rh

invented a certain new and useful method of inoculating seeds with microorganisms, (for which I have applied for a patent in Germany, dated February 23, 1900) of which the following is a specification:

This invention relates to a method of inoculating seeds with microorganisms. For this purpose the seeds in a suitable container are covered with pure water, so that they are mechanically cleaned, and the damaged or dead seeds float to the surface of the water. The water and the impurities are then poured off and the cleaned seeds are left in the water until they begin to swell, whereupon there is a loosening of the external husk of the seed and an increase in the volume of the grain, so that the seed offers an increased surface for the microorganisms and the latter obtain easy access, owing to the loosening of the husk. The seed thus prepared is sown directly without admixture of any other substance.

The application of this method is to the inoculation of seeds with bakteroids of the microorganisms of the Leguminosæ. Very shortly after the seed has become imbedded in the soil nodule (root tubercle) formation begins. The danger of killing the organisms for the inoculation by harmful soil influences is effectively obviated, owing to the fact that these organisms in consequence of the rapid germination quickly become active. On the other hand, this danger of damage or death is always present in a seed which has been merely inoculated with the liquid and has not been allowed to swell therein, so that it is a long time in germinating.

Although not specifically stated in the above specification, it is evident that the Hartleb process is a method of applying pure rhizobia cultures to seeds of leguminous plants only. Whether the method offers any advantages over the method of Nobbe and Hiltner is questionable. In any case it would prove practically advantageous only under the conditions referred to under the discussion of nitragin. Although the method has been freely discussed and experimented upon in Germany, I am not aware that the fertilizer is on the market, certainly not in the United States.

There is on the market a third patented germ or microbic soil fertilizer of German origin known as 'alinit.' It consists essentially of a pure culture of the soil bacillus known as Bacillus Ellenbachiensis alpha or Bacillus Ellenbachiensis Caron. The germ was first brought to the attention of agriculturists by Caron, a land owner of Germany, who first isolated it and called attention to the fact that it had the power of chemically binding the free nitrogen of the air. The microbe is undoubtedly closely related to B. megatherium and perhaps also to B. anthracis. According to some authorities it is especially concerned in assimilating free nitrogen for gramineous plants (grass family, Gramineæ). If this is true it may prove of great value to grain growers.

The commercial alinit is a dry pulverulent substance of a yellowish gray color, with about 10 per cent, moisture and 2.5 per cent, nitrogen. It is evidently prepared by mixing spore-bearing pure cultures of the bacillus of Caron with a base of starch and albumen. It