Farms Of The Empire

Northland Age, Volume 27, Issue 51, 30 November 1927, Page 2

Farms Of The Empire

Fertiliser* as a Vital Factor. (By A. E. Tomlinson) The Imperial Agricultural Research Conference which held its meetings in Britain during the mon'h of October is of vital importance both to the industry ot agriculture as a whole and to the development of the Empire. Th* fmportanre of scientific research to the farmer has often been stressed by leading authorities and cannot t e too much or too often stressed. It has also been practically demonstrated over and over again. The importance of concfrted and coordinated agricultural reseach from the broad Impelial viewp int is equally vital. The object of the Conference a as to explore the way towards co-ordination of agricultural research throughout the Empire and to ensure a pooling of the results of research and a prompt noplicatitn of new discoveries. N ver before has there been a confer m e for research workers in agiiculture throughout the Empire, and never before has the knowledge and experience of the Empire been gathered together in order to take common counsel about the development ot their greatest Imperial in Justry. As Mr. Guinness, the Minister lo' Agriculture, pointed oat at the opening of the conference, ev n in crowded Britain where everyone seems to be packed into towns and cities, the value of the yraly agricultural output is £t2s 000,000 whilst in the vast Dominions about eighty per cent of the population make th ir livelihood by cultivation of the soil. In tropical parts of the Empire where diseases of man and of plants and animals are so rite the value of scientific research is too obvious to demand proof. As a s agle ms’ance we may take Rtss’s work on malsria which h is saved thousands of corkers in tropical regions from illness and death. There arc striking instances also where plant pests and cattle plagues have bten successfully combated and hintlredsof thonsgndsof pounds sriv-d to Empire farmers. Insects and pests are estimated to destroy ten per cent of the world’s crops every year and twenty per cent of crops that are grown in the tropics. These figures sufficiently show what a w de field there is for agricultural rtseach throughout the Empire and what a paying proposition it can be when successful. The biggest contribution ot s;ience to farm ng is undrubtedlv artificial fertilisers. One of the most instructive and interesting of the visits of the Imperial Agricultural Research Conference was paid to the tiny Durham village of Billingham, where a hige nitrogen fertiliser factory h is been established since the war. Only four or five years ago the s'te ot the great Billingham fertiliser works was little more thin a wilderness on the North bank of the river Tees. To-day where once stood the little village and t re iso’ated farm-houses is a huge factory, or almost one might say, a collection of factories wi h structures of gigantic proportions with miles of grotesque-looking gantries and pipe-bridges, wit) a network of railway sidings, with magnificent office-buildint 5, w rile near by is a modern g rden village of three hundnd houses. Millions of capital have been employed in this gigantic project absolutely the last word in muriern machinery has been installed and the factory already gives employment to between four or fre t rcusand working-people. Moreover this is only as it were the biginning. The future wrll s-e t re capacity of the factory quadrapled, and even newer and perhaps even more important industries will be added to the newone already established. A 6 Sir Alfred Mond, chairman of Imperial Chemical Industries Ltd., of which the Billingham factory is a subsidiary, said in his message ot Welcome to the dslegltes of the Imperial A^ric-

ultural Research Conference, “I would like to say how very glad we all here arc in see representatives from -very corner of the far-flung British Empire gathered together to discuss the most important and most ancient of all industries and how it cart be improved. The agricultural problems of the Empire are diverse in many ways, but they have at least this as a great common factor —their attitude towards the use of fertilisers.”

(To be continued)