A field of great promise: soil bacteriology in America, 1900-1925

In the first decades of the 20th century, soil bacteriologists promised to revolutionize farming practice, much in the same way that medical bacteriologists, in the previous century, had transformed pathology, public health and sanitary engineering. Following the isolation of the microorganisms responsible for nitrification and nitrogen fixation, American soil scientists anticipated the time when farmers could 'seed' their crops and lands with these beneficial bacteria. Soil bacteriologists, during the early 20th century, never fulfilled the promise of supplying a biological source of unending soil fertility. However, in their search for productive microbes, these same researchers directed attention to the underappreciated dimensions of bacterial metabolism and microbial ecology.