FARMS OF THE EMPIRE

Hokitika Guardian, 24 November 1927, Page 4

FARMS OF THE EMPIRE

FERTILISERS AS A VITAL FACTOR. (By A. E. Tomlinson). Tho imperial Agricultural Research Conference which held its meetings in Britain during the month of October is of vital importance both to tiie industry of agriculture as a whole and to the development of tiie Empire.

The importance of scientific research to tho farmer has often been stressed by leading authorities and cannot l.e too much or 100 often stressed, ft has also been practically demonstrated over and over again. The importance of concerted and co-ordinat-ed agricultural research from the broad Imperial viewpoint is equally vital.

Tho object of the Conference was to explore the way towards co-ordina-tion of agricultural research throughout the Empire and to ensure a pooling of tho results of research and a prompt application of new discoveries. Never before lias there been a conference for research workers in

agriculture throughout the Empire, and never before lias the knowledge and experience of tbe Empire been gathered together in order to take common counsel about the development of their greatest Imperial industry. As Mr (Juinness, the Minister for AericiH ore. pointed out at the opening of the conference, even in crowded Britain where everyone seems to he packed into towns and cities, the value of the yearly agricultural output is £225.000,000 whilst in the vast Dominions about eighty per cent of the population make their livelihood by cultivation of the soil.

In tropical parts of tho Empire where diseases of man and of plant and animals are so rife the value of scientific research is too obvious to demand proof. As a single instance wo may take Ross’s work on malaria which has saved thousands of workers in tropical regions from illness and death. There are vtriking instances also where plant pests and cattle plagues have been successfully combated and hundreds of thousands of pounds saved to Empire farmers. Inserts and pests are estimated to destroy ten per cent of the world's < rops every year and twenty per cent of crops that are grown in the tropics. These figures sufficiently show what a wide field there Is for agricultural research throughout the Empire and what a paying proposition it can be when successful.

Tho biggest contribution of science to farming is undoubtedly artificial fertilisers. One of the most instructive and interesting of tho visits of the Imperial Agricultural 'Research Conference was paid to the tiny Durham village of Billinghnm, where a huge nitrogen fertiliser factory has been established since the war. Only four or five years ago the site of the great BiHingmun fertiliser works was little more than a wilderness on the north hank of the river Tees. To-day where onro stood the little village and Hie isolated farmhouses is a lingo factory, or almost one might say, a collection of factories with structures of gigantic proportions with miles of grotesquelooking gantries and pipe-bridges, with a network of railway sidings, v, ith magnificent offic e buildings, while nearby is a modern garden village' of throe hundred houses. Millions cf capital have been employed in ibis gigantic' project, absolutely tho last word in modern machinery lias been installed, and the factory already gives employment to between four and five thousand workpeople. M/ireover this is only as il were the beginning. Tiie future will see ili:' capacity of the factory quadrupled. and even newer and perhaps even more important industries wdl be adde'd to the new one already established.

As Sir Alfred Mornl, Chairman of (he Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd., of which the Dillingham factory is a subsidiary, said in his message of welcome to the delegates ol the Imperii/! Agricultural Research Conference, "f would like to say low very glad we all here are to see representatives from every corner of ‘he far-flung British Umpire gathered together to discuss the most important and most ancient of all industries and how it can he improved. I lie agricultural problems of the Empire are diverse in many ways, hut they have at least this as a great common farter—their attitude towards the use of fertilisers.”

‘‘l therefore propose to tell you something of the way in which this organisation began. . and of the difficulties the eventual solution of which constitutes one of the most brilliant triumphs of British engineering and chemistry.” ] “At: the outset our carefully chosen staff, picked mc.n, who have so well justified their selection, were entirely without similar experience. This process operates at very high pressures, running into thousands ol pounds per square iuefi. The mastery of high pressure technique', which we can now so confidently claim, was not in the beginning an easy matter to attain.” “The absolute smoothness with which the eventual large scale unit started was due to the vast amount of careful preliminary research and staff work which was undertaken.” “The first building we erected was not a works nor an office but a research laboratory; here every detail of tlie process was tested out on a scale sufficiently near to that of eventual manufacture to enable all ncees-. sary reductions to be drawn from ill and sufficiently small to allow of easy and rapid alterations. All our personal managers, foremen, and workmen alike were carefully trained on such plants.”

"We li.-cve .set ourselves the ambitious task of supplying the whole Empire with fertilisers, calculated to meet its vast varied and growing needs, and are not content to leave f it at that. We have under the di|ra tion of Sir Frederick Keoble, a I large experimental agricultural sta--1 lion of our own. We are anxious to eo-oocrate with similar institutions throughout the Empire, and I would’ ask von to take this on vour part as a cordial invitation to do so, and to assure you that any assistance such as is in our power will he fully and freely offered to you.” “1 would like to say a few words on the importance of such an organisation as this to our national safety in time of war. The Great War was as far as this country is concerned fought over on Chili nitrate. Any failure on our part to maintain that long sea route would have meant irrevocable national disaster. The very processes used to convert nitrate ot soda into explosives in tlie war, which were all worked out and carried through by this Company, were ctuficu.it, trying to a degree in their initiation, and quite uneconomical. This state of affairs can never Tiap[x>n again. Tn the- event of any future danger to the Empire, this organisation will have no difficulty in rapidly and economically producing the essential raw materials of explosives : ammonia and nitric acid.” “Some of our other activities on this site have a great though indirect interest, to /agriculturists. TKe mechanisation of agriculture is V‘°eeeding apaca.”

“It may well happen that the chemical industry will be called upon to provide large centralised plants for agricultural operations, such as the drying and baking of grass, and it we ever were asked to do so, our genera] experience of the handling of materials of every description will be invaluable, and it is at your service.’

'‘There is at this moment a world tendency towards the formation of large groups. AVhoie industries are amalgamated, as mv lack of leisure tolls mo to my cost. Various groups of nations are becoming more closely connected, both politically and industrially, and not the least of these is the British Empire, which economic forces and improved means of communication are rapidly welding into a homogenous whole. If we do not hang together, we shall hang separately. Even in industrial England agriculture is our greatest trade, and it is unnecessary to tell you of its importance in the Empire. The extended use of fertilisers will play a largo part in encouraging agricultuie and thereby assist in increasing the prosperity and cohesion of the 1 Empire.”

“1 would remind you, however, that vast as is the organisation ol tho Billinghnm Factory, it can only produce a fraction of the output already available elsewhere. Inasmuch as the World continues year by year to he capable of absorbing tbe vast and ever increasing output of synthetic nitrogenous fertilisers, it is evident that we will not remain content to produce a quantity which though large in itself is small in comparison with the world s ouput and the requirements of tiie Empire. We will not lie content with participating on tiie basis of our present production. Additional units are to be erected immediately. AVe shall endeavour to keep pace with the increased Imperial and world demand. “Foreseeing tiie possibility of these great developments we recognise that a selling organisation must he formed on such a scale that it would he capable of handling not only existing supplies of fertilisers, but also the potentially vastly greater quantities, which wo confidently expect to make. The oonseqlienee ol this has been the formation ol Xitram which combine-, all the previous existing selling organisation with the additional help which we have been able to give.”

“Rut a selling organisation, however efficient, cannot do all tho work that is required, if the synthetic fertiliser industry of this country is to lie developed and hold its own in the world. Jt is no exaggeration of language to say that, with the large scale manufacture cl synthetic nitrogenous fertilisers, a new era lias dawned on the world, ft is the era of nitrogen plenty. Before the coining of synthetic nitrogenous fertilisers, the sum total of life upon this planet was limited by Ihe amount of available nitrogen. The only synthetic agents for augmenting supplies oi nitrogen compounds suitable for supporting vegetable liie were tbe vet olios and tbe clover, on the one band, and on t!n> other the nitrogen-fixing bacteria of the sea and (lie soil. The slow rat ' of action of these agents sets .a limit to the development of plants, animals and cf human societies. AVith (ho advent of synthetic nitrogenous fertilisers this limit lias been removed. N'nturo can no longer parsimoniously sav to life “Thus far shall thou go and no farther.”

“New knowledge and new sources ol power must, however, be made known h.'Toiv they arc widely used, ut;i therefore Xitram Limited determined that, side by side with ■■ large selling organisation which il had formed, there must, lie, a no less large* and world wide propagandist organisation whose business it should he to make known the use and values of the new synthetic fertilisers. The admirabL service instituted by the British Sulphate cf Ammonia Federation formed the nucleus of this advisory service of Xitram Ltd. This service is rapidly growing; already it has i large staff of district advisers, whose .•ole duty it is to give free and disinterested advice to fanners on the use of fertilisers:—not only nitrogenous fertilisers, hut fertilisers of all kinds.”

“Xitram Limited has also established a research station, with upwards of -103 acres of farm lands, where problems relating to the use of fertilisers and to the feeding of stock arc to lie investigated. One of the

most important subjects which will he undertaken at the Research Station is tin l experimental enquiry as to the synthetic fertilisers most suitable to overseas requirements, for it is evident that the synthetic manufacturing activities of Dillingham are not likely to he confined to the manufacture of simple nitrogenous fertilisers, such ns sulphate of ammonia, hut will extend to the production of what may he railed dual and triple fertilisers. .Some soils require mainly one ingredient, say nitrogen; some soils require Isilli nitrogen and phosphates, or nitrogen and potash and all intensively cultivated soils require Ire-

quont applications of nitrogenous, jpotassic and phosphatic fertilisers. Therefore, llie producers of the synthetic fertilisers of the future will be engaged in the manufacture ot what may he called simple, dual and triple fertilisers. There will be .sulphate of ammonia or synthetic nitrate of urea, etc., to supply the nitrogen requirements of the soil there will he ammonium phosphates for the soils which need both nitrogen and phosphates; and there will he complete chemical compound fertilisers, containing the three chief plant foods, to 'he used by all who cultivate the land intensely. Nitrogen, phosphates and potash form the trinity.” “dt is certain that great prosperity will come to those countries which are first to seize and apply the new and great opportunities which present themselves now that the syntheticmanufacture of fertilisers is an estn blift'iecl fin-et. Xi train. L/td., there* fore, feels that it has not only a commercial duty to full'd, hut also a national and Imperial duty.” This striking address is in :i way really a message to the farmers and the farm scientists of the Empire. Already the activities of Xitram Limited are by no means confined to Great Britain. Considerable developments in the Dominions and Dependencies are in progress. For example a propaganda and marketing agency is in active operation in India, whilst in other parts of the Empire most careful thought and experience are being applied to hasten the dawn ot the new era of nitrogen. Almost daily an authoritative announcement is expected of the concrete services

which the Empire organisation for the production and distribution of nitrogen fertilisers, can render to the increased production of foodstuffs and essential raw materials throughout the world. Xitram must rentier ever growing services, and the farms of the whole Empire are going to benefit by the great, scientific pioneering work already done at Dillingham.