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New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 669, 2 May 1952, Page 19

NITROGEN In 1898, Sir William Crookes warned the world that tho human race might soon starve because intensive cultivation was draining the soil of essential plant foods. Yet today, agricultural land has become more productive than ever, for the chemist has learned the necessity. for returning to the soil the nitrogen and other elements taken up by the plant in its growth: Nitrogen is a colourless, inert gas that forms four-fifths of the air we breathe. Hundreds of thousands of tons of it are available over every square mile of the earth' $ surface, but it must first be trapped and then combined with other elements before plants can absorb it in the form of fertilizers Every day, the great synthetic ammonia factories of ICI convert hundreds of tons of nitrogen from the air into a range of fertilizers that have helped to make British farming the most efficient in the world And not fertilizers only ICI also uses nitrogen to make explosives and plastics; resins, paints and leather-cloth: ICI's nylon and other synthetic textile fbres contain nitrogen. So, too, do many of the drugs which ICI contributes to modern medicine. ICh IMPERIAL CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES (NZ) LTDJ Witenlise your diet uith Vi MAX "3238 [vimax | Ca "FINE otCOARSE Both grades make porridge equally nutritious, equally delicious. Order VI-MAX; VI-BRAN and VI-MEAL from Made by D H. Brown and Son Ltd , your grocer Moorhouse Ave , Christchurch: MiMax B,SCUITS PORRIDG (BReakfast { Maxidu And