MANAWATU EVENING STANDARD. Circulation, 3,200 Copies Daily. WEDNESDAY MAY, 30, 1906. SCIENTIFIC FARMING.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8101, 30 May 1906, Page 4

MANAWATU EVENING STANDARD. Circulation, 3,200 Copies Daily. WEDNESDAY MAY, 30, 1906. SCIENTIFIC FARMING.

Thk alliance of the chemist and the agriculturist, and the increased fertility anil production they can bring abon 1 when working in conjunction, is the subject ot an interesting article in Dalgety's Ho view for the present mouth. The writer points out that five years ago Sir William Crooks said that the population of the world was increasing so rapidly that the supply of wheat would shortly not be sufficient to feed it. He went on to say : —"When provision shall have been made, if possible, to feed 23,000,<XX) units likely to be added to the bread-eating populations by liJ3i, by the complete oceu r paney of the arable areas of the tcm- ! perate zone now part-tally occupied, | where can be grown the additional . 3;H>,UOO,UUO bushels of wheat required > ten years later by a hungry world ? . , . Before we arc m the grip of actual dearth the chemist will step in , and postpone the day of famine to so r distant a period that we and our sons and grandsons ma}* legitimately live without undue solicitude for the future." That Sir William Crooks was a true prophet is now beginning to be realised. The experiments that, have been made in the use of nitrogen have brought into notice one of the ways in which the scientist will aid the farmer in increasing the food supplies. Indeed, Sir Michael Foster reiterates what is already known to the more educated agriculturists, when in a recent publication he speaks of nitrogen as " the chemical pivot of life." Without nitrogen everything else that contributes to the growth of plant of animal is wholly useless, . uitro«en being the leader of all, guiding their various activities to the ends of life. It is the first essential of all food, whether of plant or animal; and it is all around xts, forming more than three-fourths of the air we breathe, and yet we cannot retain it when we inhale j it, but immediately have to exhale it j again. This is one of the great "whys" of life, and if some great physiologist of the future would devise some method by which we could not only take in but retain the necessary nitrogen from the atr, how many of the difficulties which now surround us all .would disappear ? However, as long as we must find this precious element in nitrogenous sub. stances existing in lite bodies of plants or of mimals which in their turn feed on plants, so long must we seek, as to plants, the best means of supplement- j ing tiieir needs in this direction. Sir

William Bamiay, one of :of oa? living chemists, its * n srtl f !i n the Time* on "Tke Fsaatiou of Nitrogen," *ummari«e* <wr ****»" able <ourcc<. The soil# vfliich conu tuimi ft JR tllft * fOHB .Of certain plant* • (essp«l»l\f ■ - Jeguminou* kind, which absorb atmospheric t nitrogen and. convert it. to to nitrated by the help of pajfaniilic organj#nn which .grow on thoir root*). At*.! tempts, apparently with suecetss, have been made id introduce th* ipore* of such parasites iu greater quantity into itotl. under the name of nitrogine. Another source of combined nitrogen « «ewage. Some year* ago there were great anticipations of help from this source. but from one cau«e or another the utilisation of aewage ntUI raa&mt exceptional. It i» said that we run into our sewer# annually £'1.6,'K)0,000 worth of combined nitrogen. It is doubtful if another source of nitrogen supplied, the sodium nitrate deposit* of Chili, "will last fifty years. But jjcientilsc experiments with existing #ouree« of supply ahow what is being done to ensure that the required proportion of nitrogen will be forthcoming. of these experiment# are contained in ft book which h«* just been issued cailed " The Book of the Hothamxted Es> perimeots/' by A, I). Hall. Thb ?s the account of certain expertmerits which hare been going on at Kothamsicd, Harpenden, Hertfordshire, ami which were started about 1852 by John Benuet Lawes. He. with the assistance of Joseph Henry Gilbert, a trained chemist, divided up hi* farm into plots, and we Khali only refer here to those in winch wheat was growing' this being «mm as a sample of the rest. A field of about 11 acres was divided into plots, and each has been treated separately on a consistent plan since lSs3«~that is to say for 53 years. Thus every possible condition, influ enced by time and varying seasons, is fairly met, covering all changes which are wrought in the plant by the soil, and in the soil by the plant. One especially interesting plot has received no manure whatever since the beginning. though a crop of wheat ha* been taken from it every year. On others, known quantities of farmyard manure ••iiul various combinations of art:fi"u! manures, nitrogenous manures of differ '•tit kind*, and phosphatu: and other mineral composts have been applied, w:hest being grown upon all of them. Till' record.-? are in great Ueuu!, comprising raintall and other meteorological condition*, analysis of soil, and of drainage water, as well as of eourie, the yield and quality of grin and striuv. All this has already supplied mo;e information on this important subjject thnn has ever hitherto be.-:: avail line. 1:1 addition to these experiments, Sir William K .unsay, in the article already nivmioued, goes into the of providing fur the future by &lii>tr.ietioi» of nitrogen from the atmosphere. He states that over each square mile of the earth's surface there is enough nitrogen in the free state to atTord plant food for over GO years" world's tonsumption if only it could be combined. Its value would be about if it n ere in the form of saltpetre. There are two practicable ways of causing this nitrogen to enter into combination. The first is to absorb it by some metal or by some metallic absorbment; the second, to cause it to unite with oxygen and to absorb tiie com. pound in alkali. Both these proe C&SO3 have been the subject of patents, and the writer gives a description of them m detail; but it is too technical f..»r the general reader. It is sufficient to say that Dr. Prank, of Berlin, has been investigating the subject in connection with the process of liquefying air, in which economical rather than scientific consideration s stund in the way. Several attempts since lihj) have been made in which electricity has been brought into action, viz . those by Mac Don gal and Howies m 1900, by Kowalski and Moszicki in IUO2, by Bradley and Love joy in the same year, and by Muthman and Hofer m 1903 ; but, except Bradley and Ix)vejoy's, which has been carried on at Niagara Falls by the Atmospheric Products Co., the results have not been satisfactory. Another process, als«;i electrical, has been patented by Birkeland and Hyde, and has been at work since 1003. Works on this system are being erected at Svaelgfoss, in Norway, which will utilise 30,000 b<kse-power and produce large qua ntities of nitrate of calcium for direct use as manure. Professor Guye, of Geneva, has proposed, with some probability of j success,thai the Frank and Birkeland ! systems should be combined, so that further developments in the direction of solving this important question may he hopefully expected.