RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 207, 30 May 1938, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights On Current Events

(By

Kickshaws.)

A French doctor claims to have found tlie measles germ, but the bug that bites tlie dictators is more elusive than ever.

A critic declares that the world today is blessed with a number of musicians who should go far. There aie folk who feel like that about the one next door.

Well, well; it is encouraging to read about those new aeroplanes recently ordered for the defence of New Zealand that they are, anyway, more than ever in the air.

“Please, can you tell me, through your amusing and most instructive column, anything of tlie system ot ‘dirtless farming,’ devised by Professor Gericke, of California?” asks “M.E. "I should be most grateful if you eould enlighten me.”

W. F. Gericke, of the University of California, has shown liow it is possible to grow crops without soil on straw matting suspended oyer water tanks. One used to do this with watercress when one was very young. The idea was developed by a German scientist named Spangenberg. Seeds are sown in yard-square trays in an airtight cabinet, from which light is excluded. The trays are supplied three times a day with a solution of water and chemicals. A crop matures iu a week and a half, a bushel to the tray. Dr. Gericke lias utilised a similar method, witli slight variations, for growing tomatoes, fruits, beaus, cucumbers and the like. There are many such schemes being investigated. In one scheme green crops are grown on trays in ten tiers. Each tray holds sufficient fodder to feed 20 cows when tlie crop matures in a matter of ten days. Peas can be matured in four weeks. Claims are made that a household can grow its own vegetables week by week in tlie same way. Cows fed on cabinet fodder are said to grow fatter and give richer milk.

Curiously enough, some of these modern tray systems of farming eliminate sunlight, and for that reason there is reason to'withhold au opinion until they have been tested out for many years. Tests require time, because it is only by seeing how stock or human beings tliriv.e over a period, of years that a final opinion can be given. Indeed, there are some experts who believe that, a century is not too long in this respect. Tlie effects of fertilisers, spectacular as they are, may introduce factors that are noticeable only after a long time. This is more and more coining to be recognised now that the importance of microscopic amounts of substances in f >ol is realised. These recent efforts to grow plants in trays uu der artificial conditions are but a step forward from an old but impressive experiment. This consists of growing plants in water to which has been added the bare, but invisible, necessities of plant life. Five common chemicals, plus sunlight and air, suffice. Plants may be grown and bred in this manner through successive generations. Their food value, however, has never been tested for a protracted period of years.

Those who wish to grow dirtless plants may care io make the original experiment mentioned in the previous paragraph. A good formula is as follows:—To pure distilled water add .1 per cent, of nitre, ,05 # per cent each of calcium sulphate and magnesium sulphate, .025 per ceilf. each of calcium phosphate and ferric phosphate. The plant wilbmake from this all the complicated chemicals it requires for its own growth. This may be said to be the basis of fertilisers. Nevertheless, there is one curious fact, that has never been solved. Farmyard manure is still unaccountably efficient. Tests made over a period of 50 years indicate that soils'given nothing but artificial fertilisers become gradually depleted. At Woburn, England, where investigation has proceded for half a century, it has been shown that in that\period roughly one-third of the original stock of carbon and nitrogen in the soil has been lost. No combination of artificial fertilisers has been found that is callable of restoring the deficiency. Only when liberal supplies of natural farmyard manure are applied regularly for years is this slow depletion stopped. It will be seen, therefore, that final judgment on dirtless farming must be put off for a considerable time, possibly a quarter of a century. * ♦ • There is another point that still requires clearing up as regards artificial methods of growing crops. The extent to which chemical elements play a part, other than the fundamental ones required for plant growth, complicates what appears to be at first a simple problem. The stimulating effect of copper and titanium is still a controversial matter. A complete absence of boron gives beans the equivalent of rickets. The absence of cobalt in grass produces bush sickness in sheep. Human beings require tin, zinc, and many other metals. It is possible to grow plants which contain a deficiency of metals. The plants will grow,- but the animals that eat the plants will not. It is not, therefore, the greenest grass that necessarily gives the healthiest cow. A further subtle problem 1 occurs when one starts to grow plants in alien soil. Virginian tobacco grown in Rhodesia or anywhere else acquires an alien tang, and loses its Virginian virtues. A cargo of Virginian soil imported into Australia restored the Virginian flavour. Obviously, the secret lies in the soil, but so far nobody has discovered how to prevent the Virginian planter from sleeping soundly in his bed. * * * “One may perhaps laugh at the boomatch on Saturday,” writes “A Reader.” “Nevertheless, nobody has ever been able to draw a line between the polite boos of spectators and outright barracking. It has been the custom since the days of jostling bouts for spectators to vent some sort of an opinion of the play. Even the most decorous schoolboy may be heard voicing encouragement of his own team. Less decorous adults may be heard doing so in a manner so uudecorous one suspects they have money on the game. The psychological effect of boos has become appreciated in the United States of America. In some matches professional ‘booers’ are paid to unnerve the opposing team. Indeed, in some Continental countries spectators have assisted the game with the aid of a revolver. It is. indeed, on record that a certain dictator watching a match in which his nation was faring badly let it be known among the team that if they lost it would mean an extension of the time during which individual members would be engaged in military training. They won.”