SOIL BACTERIA.

King Country Chronicle, Volume IX, Issue 734, 6 January 1915, Page 2

SOIL BACTERIA.

The general function of bacteria is the reduction of complex organic compounds to Bimple sub3tances. Plant life is built up from the mineral substances in the soil and atmosphere at the expense of the solar energy. Animals obtain their food directly fiom plants. When life ceases, either in plants or animals; bacteria disintegrate the dead bodies, returning the composing elements to the soil or atmosphere, to be again used in the corstruction of new forms of plant life. If the • destructive bacteria should cease their work the surface of the earth would be covered in a few years with mummies unless cremation was universal. The law of perpetuity of life depends on the use of food elemerits over and over again. The storage of food elements in the form of mummies year atfer year, would, in time, exhaust the supply, and life would become extinct. Although the general functiun of bacteria is destructive, there is a group that is constructive—building up simple substances into more complex substances. The problem of rendering his poor soil more productive, and his good soil better, is one in which every farmer is particularly interested. The failure of land to produce crops is not due, in most cases, to a lack of plant fo-jd in the soil. Chemical analyses show that in average soils there is in the top Bin enough nitrogen to last 90 years, enough phosphoric acid to last 500 years, and enough potash to last 1000 years. Why, then, if the Boil contains such store of plant food, does it fail to support continuous and heavy crops? Simply because these essentials are locked up in such chemical combinations that the plants are unable to use them. The great problem, then, of modern agriculture is not so much the conservation of plant food, as the unlocking of the rich stores already in the soil, and placing them in a condition to be assimilated by plantss. This unlocking process is carried on naturally by the soil bacteria. Thees myriads of little plants, in taking their food from the chemical compounds of the soil, produce in these compounds just the changes necessary to render them ÜBeful to the higher plants in making their growth.