The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 1907.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2042, 30 March 1907, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 1907.

| Sometimes memory is at fault, but if it is to bo relied on on this oc--1 casion it may be statod that in or • about tho year 1896, when Sir- William Crookes was elected to tho Presidency of tho Royal Society ho referred, inter alia, in his Presidential address to tho possiblo shortage of tho world’s wheat supply within thirty years, and ho said that i f nothing wore done to renew the declining productiveness of tho soil in the interim, we should then find tho necessity of looking for a substitute for bread for our breakfast tables. The reasons given for this prognostication woro that owing to the onormous increase of population wheat eating was also enormously increasing, and the constant use of tho same areas for cereal growing tended to impoverish the soil of nitrogenous substances so necessary for tho nutrition of tho plant, and to reduce the output accordingly. This -natural process ■ was really “burning the candle at both ends, for while the total measure of the world’s crops were becoming diminished the demand for tho wheat product was vastly increas- ■ ing. Professor Crookes quoted voluminous figures to support his view, and although his conclusions were not seriously challenged or refuted, the subject did not then claim the attention that so serious a condition demanded, and the question appears to have been lost sight of for many ■ years. But the scientist has not been idle, and again Sir William has drawn attention to' the subject. In a recent lecture at Bristol he has re--1 iterated his arguments, and calculates that by' 1931 the arable areas of the temperate zone will bo completely occupied, and 230 millions of ■ people will be added to the breadeating populations. If these anticipations are even approximately realised, it will mean that broad must become a luxury which only well-to-do ■ people could - a (lord to have, and it • will no longer be the main article of diet unless somotliing is done to increase the . aggregate quantity of wheat,prqtiuqed.. -To avert this possiblo famtnbjihe chemist lias stepped in and discovered -a means whereby the soil can be renewed, so to speak, by supplying the chemical tingredients that wheat crops, take from it. Wheat, it has been, "found,- requires nitrogen in some “fixed” form such as nitric acid or ammonia; but tho difficulty of producing “fixed” nitrogen in sufficient quantities .at_a_iu--ico ' that would not too expensively affect . the use of it as a soil stimulant in the growing of wheat, was a serious one. Nitrogen is mainly of atmospheric origin, and if “fixed” in the • soil by a slow and precarious process , requiring a combination of rare and precarious meteorological and geographical conditions to enable it to advance at a sufficiently rapid rato to bo of any value in supporting the growth of successive crops. Guano and other nitrogenous manures have been largely used with advantage; but the ■ supply of guano is becoming exhausted, and artificial substitutes j have been found rather expensive. All that the farmer can do when the supply of nitrogenous manures is not available is to plough up his ground so that the soil may pick up what nitrogen it can from the atmosphere when the conditions are favorable, and the more he ploughs the better, and he must trust largely to luck for the results. But here the chemist has come to his aid, and wo are now assured that as a lesult of years of costly experiment and heart-breaking failures, Professor von Krowalski, and Mr. Moscidki, a clever electrician, both of Fribourg University, have succeeded in extracting nitric acid from the air in commercial quantities and at a price that will enable the farmer to use it in rendering land fertile for wheat growing that would otherwise not pay to cultivate for that purpose. What this means to tjie bread-eating community can easily be imagined, and we can now rest satisfied that bread is not likely to reach a shilling | for the four-pound , loaf—a contingency that was quite within the bounds of probability had the discovery of extracting nitrogen from the air at a payable price nat been made. Already patents have been applied for in various countries for this new process of fertilisation. At present, nitrate of soda to the extent of a million tons a year is exported from; Chili and twelve times the quantity j is required. Tho commercial value of nitric acid at present is from £-50 to £6O per ton, and the quantity limited and becoming exhausted. with the new process it is expected to turn it out at little more than half the cost, and according to Sir William Crookes, the use of it in wheat growing will increase the world’s average' yield now standing at 12.7 bushels per acre to quite double that amount. This is another of the many triumphs of science lor which the world is indebted j.o scientific investigators, and yet, sad to relate, they are in the majority of. eases allowed to. go to their graves “onbonored and unsung” by ungrateful peoples while monuments are erected to the memories of political charlatans, successful warriors, and others who deserve not a tithe of the public gratitude that these men have earned and never get. “The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.’