NEW ERA IN NITROGEN

Evening Star, Issue 19804, 1 March 1928, Page 5

NEW ERA IN NITROGEN

MORE LIFE OK THE EARTH THE NEW SYNTHETIC PROCESS TRIUMPH OF BRITISH GEMUS. A fascinating vista of more life upon the earth was opened recently in the course of a remarkable address at Billingham by Sir Alfred Mond to tho delegates to the Imperial Agricultural Research Conference. “ With the large-scale manufacture of synthetic nitrogenous fertilisers a new era," Sir Alfred said, ’ has dawned on the world. It is the era of nitrogen plenty. Before the coming of these now fertilisers the eum total of life upon this planet was limited by the amon.it of available nitrogen. With their advent the limit has been removed. Nature can no longer parsimoniously say to life ‘Thus far sbalt thou go and no further.’ ”

In an interview, Sir Alfred explained the significance of tho new process, “ Civilised mankind has been, as it were, living,” hy said, 11 on its accumulated capital of agricultural resources. The industrial revolution in the early years of the last century was accompanied by a radical change in the national balance with respect to foodstuffs. Previously Great Britain had been self-supporting, but at that period she began to import food from foreign sources, and has bee i doing so to an increasingly greater extent ever since.

" This state of affairs might have gone on for ever it the external sources from which they came had been indefinitely great. As a matter of fact, however, civilised mankind was, so to speak, merely negotiating an overdraft. Tho tremendous agricultural developments in countries such as Canada and Australia were due almost entirely to tho fact that the lands on which they were made had not been broken up by. modern agricultural methods since the beginning of time.

“ It is quite fair to say that at the present moment there are considerable reserves of such untouched lands at the disposal of humanity, but the end is obviously m sight. We are undoubtedly drawing on tho agricultural reserves of the world to a greater extent, than they arc being supplied by Nature THREE PRINCIPAL NECESSITIES. “ Now tho three principal agricultural necessities are fixed nitrogen, phosphates, and potash. As regards phosphates and potash the natural mineral resources of tho world are sufficiently great to satisfy the needs not only of this generation, but also of mankind for as long a period aa is reasonable to contemplate. Of potash, in fact, there is an almost inexhaustible supply in the Dead Sea and the development of that industry there is not only providing an alternative source of supply, but will encourage the whole of the future industrial development of Palestine.

“ Thinking men have never yet been alarmed by any prospect of a shortage in the production of phosphates and potash, but tho question of a probable shortage of fixed nitrogen has exercised the best minds for a very long period past. . . . Up till comparatively recent years the world’s sources of fixed nitrogen have been tho nitrate fields of Chili, the by-product ammonia of tho coal industry, and the ordinary agents of Nature—namely, the nitrifying bacteria cf *.ho soil and certain plants, such as clover. The process for the fixation of the nitrogen of tho air which has had the greatest success up to tho present is one winch had its origin in Germany. ■ It has now been developed in this country, and in a manner characteristic of our national genius. ... I am proud to say that tho superior mechanical genius of my countrymen has so far transformed the original German process as to make us the loaders in its economic production.

“ What will be tho immediate practical results of tins new process? While I should hesitate to say that the inhabitants of this country will ever bo independent of outside supplies of food, yet 1 can confidently predict a future m which the economic balance of this country will be maintained in a state far nearer true equilibrium than it is at the present time, and in one which from the far larger point of view of tho Empire might bo described as truly perfect. One result of this new process will be to make Great Britain one of the finest grass land pasturages of tho world. SUGAR, COTTON, AND RUBBER. “ The demand for fertilisers is not confined to feeding stuffs. It is also required fo- many of our essential raw materials, and will be more urgently required in tho future. Sugar and cotton are excellent' examples of what I moan. For these commodities the new fertilisers will ensure increased production, and will probably do so before they receive the full credit for tho results of their aett n.” Had these new discoveries been delayed for another quarter of a century, the whole fate of mankind might have been altered, Sir Alfred added. A disastrous harvest, fo- example, in one of the large agricultural regions of iho world might even, ho said, have liar] a repercussion which might have destroyed civilisation as it is now known.