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VACCINATING THE GROUND. he Wonderful New Discovery Enabling the Farmes to Do Away With Nitrogen Fertilizers. i Raynor:.l Porter, Author of "A S':en 'y-five-t holsand-poltnd Me'eorite,' etc. This a:rti":e has been revi'ed by an:l as riec:v; l i.:' approval of the Unit dl Sta:: :, Iepartment of Agriculture. The uplto-:late farmer no longer pends h undreds of dollars annually a buylug fertilizers for his acres. In toad, hi: senis to the Department of igric'lture in W\ashington and re ei,;s a iit!le package of bacteria nid with thlit- he vaccinates his soil, nabl.s h;s Iplants to draw their nitro ;en fro:l t ' lir illS, ad of from the troll tdl, al(l iincreases his crops fromn (ii) to 1Pit) per cent. What this :nvention means in dol ars and: cents to the country at large rl.,l IJ the farmer in particular is oi0n,.:eil a inmust beyond conmputation. nlag;inl' :al are of wheat and each Aere ;of pta!os, following a crop of unocultfe d legumes. producing as maliy buis,'s a-. two acres formerly producel i. magine each acre of peas, of beans, of (lover, of vetch and of allfafa producing as much as ten acres formerly produlced. Imagine the in crease in the income of the farmer. Imagine thel decrease in the price of food stuffs for the g'eneral consumer. Imagine thousands upon thousands of acres that have been abandoned be cause of "worked out" soil, that now may be worked at a profit far greater than ever. Nothing experimentative remains about the application of these bac toria. The invention is settled and practicable beyond dispute, for, the United States Agricultural Depart ment itself says so. Farmers through out sections in the entire land have experimented with the bacteria dur ing thO past two years and the re sults have proved simply marvelous. From two to twenty-fold crops have been grown on these vaccinated lands. Worthless, barren ground, literally too poor to grow weeds, has been vaccin ated and made to produce crops four times as large as those taken from the average unvaccinated soils. Here ara a few specific instances: A field of poor ground was divided Into halves, and one of the halves! was vaccinated by the new method. The untreated half of the field pro duced only 200 pounds of clover to the acre. The inoculated field produced 2000 pounds to the acre. Similarly, two fields of vetch were teperimented with, th-e untreated patch yielding 581 pounds and the treated patch 4501 pounds to the acre, or an average increase of almost S per cent-a slng:e vaccinated acre pro ducing as much as eight unvaccinated acres. Again, adjacent tields were treated and left untreated, the soils produc ing resFactively 6292 and 372 pounds of crimson clover to the acre. In oth er words, the vaccination repaid very nearly $20 for $1. A Maryland farmer who had been obliged to abandon two-thirds of his farm because it was "worked out," in creased his output 500 per cent, simply by vaccinating his soils. Scores o; similarly abandoned farms were re claimed. To understand the simple principle of this revolution in agriculture it is necessary only to bear in mind that ni trogen is one of the chief foods of plants. Potash, iron, etc., a plant must have to thrive, but nitrogen is one of the most important of all the elements in plant diet. Orlinarily, plants take their nitro gen out of the ground through the medium of their roots, and each suc cessive crop draws on the nitrogen supply of the soil, so that, unless the drain is balanced by putting back just so much of the valuable food, the ground will become lean and poor und, eventually, useless. Up to now, the method of putting back the nitro gen exhausted by the crops has been by using fertilizers. Every fall and spring the farmer carted hundreds up on hundreds of loads of costly ma nure, spreading it with untold labor. Guano he spread, and expensive fer tilizers costing from $30) to $75 a ton. He even had to scatter nitrate of soda (saltpeter) shipped more than a thou sand miles, all the way from Chile. in fact, so absolutely necessary were these soil invigorators and so exten sively had they to be used that today practically all the gua:no beds of the A world have been exhausted, and the visible supply of sa:tpetler is so lim-. ited that, according t to the present rate of consumption, it (an last no longer than fifty years: after which, accord ing to science, scarcity of crops and' r -Famine. And now. in the nick of time, along comes a tiny, invisible, friendly germ, i offering to work for us free of charge and to supply nitr(ogen as quickly as a our crops can use it up, if only we will treat, him half-way de:ently. How the Discovery Was Made. From earliest times it has been re cognized that moat exhausted soils, if permitted to rest for a few seasons, would regain iheir fertility. Only conm s paratively recently, however, was it learned that what enriches thl-,se soils h is a form of soil hacteria which has i the faculty of drawing nit:ogen from the surrounding air and, by storing it up, rendering it availible for plant food. Also, ever since the tinti of t Pliny it ha.s bVen known that the legu minous, or iodt bearing plants, like peas, beans, clover, etc., did not re quire the same amount of fertilizer tf necessary for other plants. More, r. these plants, instead of drawing from tf the soil, actually enriched it by taking a an excess of nitrogen from the air aind N storing it up in the ground for the benefit of other kinds of crops. This is what gave rise to the modern meth s od of rotating crops, although why the legumnious and not the other plants d siould have this faculty, was a mys. tery. It was never suspected that t- these pod-bearing plants had a par ticular attraction for the soil bacteria, and that here they congregated in such numbers that they might readily be procured. It had been notic'd that the roots of these legumes grew num bers of nodules, varying in size from a pin-head to a potato, but these were supposed to be due to bit-as from worms and insects. Not unVl the 1. German Professor Nobbe brought tu Sbecles under the microscope was it found that they we;r literally alive I with soil bacteria. d To isolate, to breed and to colonize s these nitrogen-flxing germs so that they might be shipped to all quarters f of the glob'e was the problem, and the t e Professor succeeded in part. He pro duced what he called "Nitragin." which was widely advertised and sold I e enormously. But, although there wel' d instances of phenomenal success, on e the whole Nitragin was a deplorable failure. SIt was at this point that Dr. George T. Moore, in charga of the Labora d tory of Plant Physiology, Department 1 of Agriculture, took up the invention d and made it practicable. To thesE minute, invisible organisms he applied a rule which holds for the higher ani mals. He decided that the German I Professor had gone too far by being i too good to his germs. At the out Ssot, the professor had given his bac t'sria too much nitrogen and they nev- I er learned to gather it for themselves, Sbut died no sooner their original por tion was exhausted. Dr. Mooro treated his germs just as a wise father treats his son. He( did not surfeit them with the good Sthings of life. He gave them just Senough nitrogen to make them want f more, and gradually thcey learned to t hunt it for themselves and to hunt Sup enough for themselves and to e spare. In fact, so active were these bacteria when turned out of the labor . atory that seeds soaked in the germ Ssolution sprouted and grew luxuriantly in quartz sand which had been heated · red previously in order to drive off Sthe last traces of nitrates. SWith this success phenomenally es tablished, it remained merely to en able the cultures to be distributed in sufficient quantity to become of Spractical use. It was found that when Sthese bacteria were grown on nitro d gen-free medics they retained their . high activity, providing they were . carefully dried out and revived in. a , liquid at the end of varying lengths r of time. By using an absorbent, like cotton, which will absorb millions of Stubercleforming bacteria these could . be shipped to any part of the United States and arrive in perfect condition, e ready to be revived in water and to Sbe cultivated into untold billions by Sthe simple addition of certain nutri-f. e ent salts. Thus, by sending out a dry culture no larger than an yea.tt cake, the bacteria might be nultiplied suf flciently to inoculate at least an acre of land. In fact, the amount of ma terial thuIs obtained is limit'ed only by the quantity of rhr' nutrient water solution. and it must be evident that the cost of inoculating land is so c ery small that it is absolutely infinites imal when compared with the very large increase in r'eturn.= from soil so tre -ated. Directions for Using Inoculating Material, The inoculating material is sent to the farmer by the tGovernment for '.x !p.rimental plurposes in thre lipac.k ages. The first of these contains t'llhe cotton penetrated with millions of the dried germs. Tile first and the third packag.,s are the media of food by which the farmer can aimultiptly the erln.. thhe entire plrocedul ite, accordl ing to the departi: ::;'s dirl'etiotns, I, ing as follows: "Pult one gallon of water, pitet:rably rainwater, In a clean tolob or bucket and add No. I of the packages of salts- cointaining gr.an!ulat .d silgatl, pot aSI urnm ihosphate, and magulesi,m sul 1phate. Stir occasionally until dis solved. "Carefully open Ipackage No. 2-con. taining bacteria-and drop the en closedl cot on into the solution. ('over tha' t.'ibt with a paper to pIrotect from dust anti set aside in a warm place for te(nty-four Ihoulrs. Do not haat the solution or you will kill the bac teria-it should never be wa'rmcr than blood-heat. "After twenty-four hours, add the cont.ents of package No. :;--containing ammonium sulphate. Within twenty hours more the solution will have a cloudy appearance and is ready for use. To Inoculate Seeds. "Take just enough of the solution thoroughly to moisten the seeds. Stir thoroughly so that all seeds are touched by the solution. Spread out the seeds in a shady place until they are perfectly dry, and plant at the usu al time just as you would untreated seed. The dry cultures as sent from t the laboratory will keep for several months. Do not prepare the liquid culture moro than two or three days previous to the time when the seeds are to be treated, as, once the solu tion has been made, it must be used up within forty-eight hours. To Inoculate Soil. "Take enough dry earth, so that the solution will merely moisten it. Milx thoroughly so that a:l the particles of the soil are moistened. Mix this earth with four or five times as much un treated egrt'h. Spread this inoculated earth thinly and evenly over the field exactly as if spreading fertilizer. This should be done before plowing, or else the inoculated seed should be har rowed in immediately. "Either of the above methods may be used, as may be most convenient." But the nitrogen-fixing bacteria work still other wonders, for they are not of use merely for the purposes of raising leguminous crops. Already it has been told how the legumes en rich the soil by bringing back nitrogen to it. T'h identical bacteria that in crease the harvest of these plants ten. fold and more, enable them to store in finitely more nitrogen in the soil than would ordinarily be the case. In short, the bacteria increase the leguminous crops tenfold, and the leguminous crops are proportionately more active in enriching the soil. A crop of un. inoculated crimson clover adds 4.3 pounds of nitrogen to an acre. A crop of inoculated crimson clover adds 143.7 pounds. At the foot of this article is printed a table illustrating in figures the value of soil vaccination. It is impossible to foretell how much the invention of Dr. Moore will in crease the crops of the United Stat-es, or those of the world-for the bac teria are applicable without regard to climate or country. In the opinion of agricultural scientists, not in the history of the Department of Agricul ture has there been a more promising development. Original Yield per Acre. Cotton ................932. pounds Potatoes ....- .......... 67.8 bushels Oats .................. 8.4 bushels Rye ................... 4.5 bushels W heat ................. 18.6 bushels Yield Per Acre After Inoculated Crop. After red clover .......1304. pounds After crimson clover ...102.2 busheld After velvet beans.... 33.6 bushels After peas ............ 23.5 bushels After melilotus.......26.9 bushels Gain Gain Per Cent in Weight. til Value. of Gain. 372. pounds $414.ti4 40 per cent. 34.4 bushels 15. 50 per cent. 25.2 burshels 9 . 300 per cent. 19. bushels 9.85 400 per cent. 8.3 bushels 6.50 46 per cent. Fufkin Victims Will Rebuild. Lufkin, Texas: The fire of Friday night threw about thirty men out of work. We learn that Cook Bros., Kerr and Fox will shor':y rebuild and larger and mole up-to-date houses. International hay-Day. Taylor, Texas: Ycstc:'day was pay day for ti:e employes of the Interna tional & Great Northern railway at this place. Th:e monthly payroll of this company now amounts to betwaen $7, 000 or $8,000. or about $100,000 an nually. San Antonio Pigeons Released. Taylor, Texas: Two hundred and sixty-two homing pigeons shipped 'here from .San Antonio were at 7:32 o'clock this morning turned loose by Express [ Agent Strom, C. F. Gilstrap and E. 1 Riddle. Wlhen liberated the birds made a beautiful start for their Western home. Cuero, Texas: A good rain fell here yesterday morning just in the nick of 1 time for potatoes, cantaloupes and cu- 1 cumbors, which had begun to need it.i El Paso, Texas: A carload of sil-. nd ver dollars, consisting of sixty-nine boxes and containing money to the t ere value of $249,000 gold, passed through I )CK this port yesterday .-n route from Mex .ss ico to San Francisco for exportation t E. to China. The silver occupied an en- c Wde tire express car and is said to be the I largest exportation of silver dollars 4 rn ever made from this country. t Temple, Texas: Another severe are rain fell here Sunday afternoon, com of mencing about noon and lasting for 3 cu- hours. An immense amount of wa, it. ter fell during that time. PROSPEROUS SECTION OF KANSAS SWEPT BY DEADLY TORNADO ii _1 i i- _ Jer e I , 3//O ' C o< T, O.: * * +*",",py*0p*+ .-" *"o0ý$,.+'' -e" * * e. e . eý""eese I"e -I .d.· 6 ·i· ·K Marqluete, Kan., suffered the worst from :lhe storm. In the town and im mediate vicinity twenty-nine, were killed and more than 1io) more or less injured. The tornado t ,rew the town into a . anic, wrecked scores of buildings and did nmtch damage in the country near by. .31any of the victims were Ikilled as they lay asleep: others t awoke, main: me and bIlriing, to find thiemselves hluried i tlhe ruins of their L hons. ,Rescuers worked with ]an s terns for sveral hour:;, earin~; for the sufferers. a The storm swept a ctean swath 100 s yards wide through the town, destroy P ing th(' Methodist and Lutheran churches tih, opora house and many s dwellings. THE PACE THAT KILLS. I Physician's Arraignment of Our Mod ern Society. Physicians in New York have been startled by the alarming increase in the number of sudden deaths due chiefly to heart disease. 1)r. Girdner, I author of "New Yorkitis," makes a short-cut to the real cause of this I mortality when he says: "New Ycrk ers are driving themselves like beasts of burden. They are working like dynamos all day, and playing like t idiots at night." To use an old phrase, they are going "the pace that kills." We cannot lead the strenuous life without paying for it. We may work too hard, eat too fast, play irration ally, sleep too little if we wish; but nature demands its equivalent. Nerv ous strain means a weakened heart and other organic troubles-often a sudden death. And all for what? Merely to excel someone else in money getting or in climbing the so cial ladder. If a man must work like a dynamo all day he ought not to be an idiot at night. And if he plays the idiot so cially he should not be a business dynamo. He may stand one or the other and die from old age; but if he tries them both it won't be long be fore something will break. The dy tamo may burn out or the idiocy be come permanent. The fact that we are living too fast I -for New York has no monopoly on the strenuous life-is not deduced from sudden deaths alone. Nervous strain means accidents, suicide, some times even murder. t Is the game worth the candle? Is any fortune or social position that L man can attain compensation for a combination of dynamo and idiot? "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"-Chicago Post. HEAD OF IMPORTANT BUREAU Recent Appointment Is Promotion for William C. Fox. The appointment of William C. Fox to the directorship of the bureau of American republics, to fill the vacancy made by the appointment of W. W. Rockhill as United States minister to China, has been announced. Mr. Fox has been with the bureau since 1898, prior to which time he was consul at Brunswick, Germany, for thirteen years, being appointed by President Grant. Nurses Worn-Out Horses. The princess of Wied, who is a prominent figure in the court circle at Berlin and whose husband is in the line of succession to the throne of Hol land, has developed a curious but hu mane hobby, in which only ore of her great wealth could indulge. She buys all the ill-used horses that come to her notice and gives them the benefit - of a stay in her well-appointed sta e bles. A period of rest and kind treat S Utent usually restores the unfortunate animals to good condition and puts them in working order again. Hun e dreds of broken-down horses have en Joyed the princess' hospitality and have left the equine sanitarium "as good as new" IBRANDEGEE GOES TO SENATE Successor to Late O. H. Platt of Con necticut. Congressman Frank B. Brandegee, who has been chosen to succeed the late Senator O. H. Platt in the United IStates senate, represents the Third Connecticut district in the national house of representatives. He is a Yale graduate, and while at Yale pulled the bow oar in the varsity boat crew. He was elected to the legisla ture twelve years ago, and in 1893 was chosen speaker of the Connecticut house. His father had held the same office in the legislature and was con gressman during the civil war. Indifference to War's Horrors. It would take a psychologist to ex plain why all the world shudders at the blotting out of- St. Pierre or the drowning out of a Johnstown--and gladly puts its hand in its purse in order to aid the survivors, while to. day it regards the far greater loss ot life in Manchuria with comparative equanimity-the excuse for a few banal remarks. Let natural forces but triumph over and destroy a few thou sand human beings and everybody groans. But if your supposedly civil ized nations set their hundreds of thousands to smashing of skulls, blow ing each other to pieces and wholesale maiming we merely speculate as to whether the losses are proportionately greater than in other battles, or whether this is the largest slaughter of men on record, and even bet on the exact date when Harbin is likely to fall. Why this distinction when it comes to the taking of human life en masse.-New York Evening Post. Children cf the Slums. Their chances of existence are small in the midst of the unsanitary horrors of the slums; their chances of a happy, healthy childhood and a successful, honorable future are al most nil. But they are coming into the world by thousands; the people who have the most excuse for race suicide have ever the least inclination toward it. In the sluris the children swarm; they die like flies or live worse than beasts, shut up in fester ing hotbeds of misery, disease and crime. And God's great, generous acres, where they might thrive and grow well and sweet and beautiful and strong, lie barren and deserted in the sunshine-often held by land-grab bers, who gained them by fraud. To bring them together-these landless children and these childless lands would be a work to immortalize any millionaire alive.-Cleveland Leader. Soldiers of Various Nations. Of all great nations the United States of America have In their peace time standing army the smallest num ber of soldiers in proportion to extent of populatiop. namely, one soldier to every 1,O(i) citizens. The opposite ex treme, curiously enough, is reached by anofhcr republic-France-which has one soldier for every seventy-two of its population. Italy has one soldier to every 100 su.jec, Germany, one to 107; Austro-Hungary, one to 125, and Great Britain, one soldier to every 225 subjects. Belgium, having a pop ulation of not more than 7,000,000, has one ,soldier to every 130 inhabi tants. Russia has one soldier to every 140 of its subjects: Japan, o0j to8 50. LOUISIANA NEWS. Book Depositories at New Orleans. Baton Rougt. L.a.: The four general depositori:' for the distribution of the uniform Itext books adopted for use in the public ,hools l acle of I.ouisianla will be located at New ()rleans. Shreveport, Alexandria and M1 onr'oe, and will be maintained for four y'ears. This was decided aft,,r ,I. . Astceli. state super intendent of educl.ation, r'equested an opinion fromn itch ne mlt'mlur of the stla e Iboard (,f edlucation, the n;ajority agrl.e ing 111)011 the cities lamnted. tIi tir past vy t Wo general &,iposfries have ieen miaintailmd, both in NStw Or'',uts. In addition to these four' general depos itories, the law provides that each par ish in tht' state shall lhav', not less than one nr more than four local de I;ositori s. This law does not mean Qhat th!e p ublishing Ihouss cannot maintain Inor. than four depopxitories in a parish, but means that they cannot ir, compellled to maintaitn mlort than four. In some of thr larger parishes more than four depositorios are main tained. The contract; for these de positories are nlatl. by tihe ipublishing houses with thue local dealers in the varioust parishes. The parish superin tendents of education are no)w tiling with the sta.l- stlperintonh lent informa t ion as to the :umllber of local tdeposito ries that will be required in their re spective parishes. This informatioll will be forwarded at anr ",arly date to the publishers, and they will act upon it in making arrangements for the dis tribution of their hooks. Southern Pacific Employes. HIouma, La.: The excursion given for the Uneflt of the Southern Pacitia employe reached here Fridlay mornnl-a in three sections. There were about 3000 men, ladies and children on the trains, with four brass hands. The ex cursionists were scattered throughout the town, but the greater portion made their headquarters at Suthron's Park, whtere games of baseball were arrang Ed for the afternoon. Braun's Naval Band discoursed music in the pavilion at Court Square, where a good many of the excursionists gathered under the oaks. The excursion was gotten up solely for the Southern Pacific em ployes and their families, In order to give them an outing free of any coat and expense, except the actual coat of running the trains. Recommends High License. Houma, La.: The grand jury im paneled for the May session of the Dis trict Court has made its final report. The opinion is -expressed that the in discriminate use of liquors is the cause of much crime, and higher li cense is recomnnicnded for the town of Ilouma end parish. Tho police jury and town officials of Houma are en treated to give the matter their serl ous attention. I he report also conm ments on the matter of cortain sugar refineries allowing slops and acids to flow into the natural streams of the parish, and asks that this practice be stopped at once. The following true bills were presented: Shooting with inent to murder, 3; violating oyster law, 14; larceny, 4; murder 4; bur glary, 1; assault with a dangerous weapon, 1; afflicting wound less than mayhem, 1; assault by wilfully shoot ing at, 1; Harry Guidry, who shot and killed two young sons of Theopile Des roche s me time ago while they were aslee, n bed. was indicted for murder. It is alleged that Guidry is insane. Naval Cadet Appointed. Alexandria, La.: Peter Bchnack, son of C. A. Schnack, has received, through Hlion. A. P. Pujo, congressman from the Seventh district, appoint ment as cadet in the Annapolis Naval Academy. Mayor Andrew Querbes and Ald:r ren S. A. Dicksotn and R. C. Friend, of bhrevoport, were the guests of Alexan dhin last week, and were conducted over the city by Mayor Turner and Al d.'Tman and Secretary of the Progress Ive Union H. B. Cha.s:. The Shreve port officials were here to inspect the city's electric lighting and waterworks systems, which ar. owned and operat ed by the city. Shreveport is contem ,lating municipal ownership of her wa ter atid lighting pl:ans. In order to get right of way on pub. lie roads outside the city limits the el-rettle street railway promoters have askd ,the police jury for that privilege andi a meeting of the jury has bere. called for Thursday, ?.ay 18. Welsh, La.: An unknown negro was killed here Friday night by one of the freight trains. His body was found near the stockyards about It p. m. His head was crushed and one arm and one leg were broken. The supposition is that he was stealing a ride on the bumpers and fel botw-,eu the wheels, causing instant death. Thieves Rob Grocery. Boutte, La.: T'hieves Friday night broke open Sellers & Youn='s grocery store and stole the cash drawer, which contained about $18. They did not touch anything el.-c. They gained an (ntrance by forcing a bldroom win dow back of tthe store. which is oppo si:t the Southern Pacific delpot. Prisoners Sentenced. jDonald.lscnville, La.: Thie last. day of the Criminal Court was taken uip in the sentencing of prisoners who were convicted to sery." te:ms in the pent tntiary. John Richardson, for embez z!ement, was given 1 year; .Fh.i:;on Washington, mans!aug'iter, i 5 yar's and a fine of $1'; Waler Russell, mur 'ler, imprisonnr..nt for life. In the case Af Dominique Savoja. w'no was con victed of buying goods on credit and e:ling them out of the ordinary course -f business, sentence was suspended 'ud the accutred re.eas utinder a $200 iond. Court thcn adjourned sine die.