A Triumph of Science.

Progress, Volume II, Issue 6, 1 April 1907, Page 227

A Triumph of Science.

Sir William Crookes' address at Bristol on the " Worlds' Wheat Supply," has aroused universal interest and provoked world-wide comment and criticism. Therein by elaborate statistics. Sir William showed that, owing to the gradual diminution of the world's wheat-growing areas, due to the enormous and rapid increase of population, we were, as wheat eaters, within measurable distance of a considerable shortage of supply, unless means could be found to increase the productivity of wheat-growing areas. By 1931 Sir William reckonen that 230 million units were likely to be added to the bread eating populations and the arable areas of the temperate zone completely occupied. Where, he asked, were we to grow the additional 330 million bushels of wheat required ten years later by a hungry world ? He answered his own question. The chemist would step in and postpone the day of famine to so distant a period that even our great grandsons may live without undue solicitude for the future. It is now recognised that all crops require what is called a dominant manure — some need nitrogen, some potash, others phosphates. Wheat pre-eminently demands nitrogen, fixed in the form of ammonia or nitric acid. All other necessary constituents exist in the soil ; but nitrogen is mainly of atmospheric origin, and is rendered fixed by a slow and precarious process which requires a combination of rare meteorological and gepgraphical conditions to enable it to advance at a sufficiently rapid rate to become of commercial importance. For a long time guano has been one of the most important sources of nitrogenous manures, but guano deposits are near exhaustion. And the only available compound containing sufficient fixed nitrogen to be used on a wide world scale as nitrogenous manure is nitrate of soda, upon which we must rely to increase the fertility of the land under wheat, so as to raise the yield from the world's low average — 12.7 bushels per acre — to a higher averaere. To do this sufficiently and to feed the bread eaters for a few years, will exhaust all the available store of nitrate of soda. Every square yard of the earth's surface has nitrogen gas pressed down on it to the extent of about seven ton'' — but this is in the free state, and wheat demands it fixed. For years chemists have been trying to discover a method of " fixing " atmospheric nitrogen so as to render it available for the manifold purposes of man, but hitherto the problem has baffled them. Now, however, we are assured that after six years of exhaustive and costly experiments, and many heart breaking failures, a method of producing pure concentrated nitric acid from the air on a commercial scale has been devised by Professor Joseph yon Krowalski and Mr. I . Moscicki, a clever electrician both of the Fribqurg University, and that in a little while nitric acid extracted from the atmosphere will be produced on a large scale, at a price which will permit its free use in agriculture. What this may mean commercially may be gathered from the fact that one million tons of nitrate of soda (Chili saltpetre) is annually exported from Chili and that speaking broadly about twelve million tons could be absorbed in addition with ease. Nitric acid alone in market price ranges from to /60 per ton. The system is in the hands of a body of experienced English gentlemen including competent experts and engineers, for development in the United Kingdom in the United States, Canada, the colonies, and other countries. Patents have been applied for and in several countries already granted. A vast amount of water power has been secured in various countries m contemplation of the working of this system on a gigantic scale. According to Sir William Crookes, wheat land fed with nitrates becomes enormously more fertile, its productivity being more than doubled by such treatment It has indeed been demonstrated beyond doubt that with the assistance of nitrogenous manure the yield of wheat lands can be raised to fully thirty bushels per acre, as against the present world's average of 12.7 bushels.