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Show NITROGEN IS OF IMPORTANCE Large Sums of Money Are Expended Yearly for Fertilizers Containing Contain-ing This Element One of the most important plant and tree foods is nitrogen. Large sums of money are spent every year by farmers and fruit growers for fertilizers fer-tilizers containing this element. The air we breathe is the greatest known storehouse of nitrogen, but the nitrogen nitro-gen in the air is not in a form which can be directly used by the plants. It can, however, be converted into a usable form by the action of soil bacteria bac-teria those microscopic organisms which exist in soils and materially affect af-fect the growth of crops. Cultivation brings these soil bacteria into direct contact with the air from which they take the nitrogen and convert it into food for the adjacent plants and trees. Without cultivation this beneficial activity ac-tivity of these minute organisms is greatly restricted, and consequently uncultivated orchards are not as well supplied with the food materials required re-quired for the prolific production of fruit of the best quality. Cultivation, too, keeps in the moisture of the soil, and give the rain and sun a chance to produce the best results. |