THE SKETCHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2801, 20 November 1907, Page 78

THE SKETCHER.

STARVATION AND THE LABORATORY. HOW WHEAT CONTROL'S' THE WHITE AND "YELLOW tJROBLEM. A fascinating scientific problem of the greatest importance is dealt with .in the i ' Westminster Gazette (September JJ7), under • the 'heading "Starvation and the Laboratory:" It shows how race supremacy may [ be bound up with. wheat and nitrates and ; the genius of the chemist. "Scientific men '.have alarmed us from time to time by threatening a shortage in oommoditiee which are necessary to human existence — shortages of coal, shortages of iron, and so forth," begins the Westminster Gazette leader. "Some of these scarps have been laid to rest by fuller investigation. Coal, we now have reason to think, will last not merely our time, but long enough to give, the resourceful race of man ample opportunity of" ifiscoVering other kinds of fuel before it is exhausted. Iron, we have reason to think, exists in such quanities in .all parts of the world that the supply is practically inexhaustible. But now comes an alarm about wheat, and, like the others, it is> backed by high scientific authorities. "While the farmer is grumbling that app.uently inexhaustible new supplies hav<spoilt his price; and while tlte rest of us have been congratulating ourselves on the almost illimitable prospects of the great North-West, the situation looks ominous to the seeing eye of Sir William Crookes and Professor Silvamis Thompson. We are living in a fool's paradise," these eminent men tell us, aid a day may come, and no very distent day, when 'the wheatekting races of the world will either .have to find substitutes for bread or- he exposed to a scarcity which to vast numbers of them will mean «ometh~ing like starvation, unless in the meantime, 9, way «an be, found of increasing the "yield per* acre." — A Shortage of Wheat Prophesied. — • "The argument will be found, fully set out in an article entitled 'When Wheat Fails,' which Professor Silvsvnus Thompson i contributes to the October number of the World's Work. It is" very simple; and can be stated in a 'few words. The total avail- l able wheat acreage of the whole world may be stated approximately at 24O,OO0,<!)OO acres, which at the present average yield would furnish "an annual crop of 3,000,000,000 bushels. At the present rate of consumption, which is 4£ bustiels per I .annum per wheat-eater, this would furj nish wheat for a total population of j 666,000?000 souls. Kow .the present wteateatmg population— i.e., the white races and a certain proportion of other races in contact with, white races — may be estimated at 585,000,000; and, according to Sir William €rookes, will be 671,000,000 by the year 1921. Thus in 14 yeaTs' time we ! shall actually have begun to "feel the short- j age, and in 20 years from that time a population of 819,000,000 will be scrambling for a wheat supply which is sufficient only for 666,000,000. If that were, indeed, a true forecast, we should hear no more of foofl iaxes; instead, we should see all the ports open and all the Governments imploring the wheat-grower to bring his crops to them. —The Chilian Nitrates.— " But, it may be said, the present average yield of 12^ bushels per acre is no measure of the possible yield from the 240,000,000 acres available. The grower will use artificial manures and devote himself to intensive culture. True, answers Professor Thompson, but the artificial manures at present in use will be exhausted about the time that the shortage becomes acute. The reserve of Chilian nitrates, without which even the present extension of the world's wheatfielde would have been impossible, will be exhausted ' in, a -period estimated by various authorities at from 16 to 48 years,' and no search has discovered any similar supply. The case, then, looks hopeless j but happily at this critical moment the chemist comes to our rescue. — Atmosphere as Fertiliser. — " In the words of Sir William Crook«s, ' starvation may be averted through the laboratory.' Once more there is nothing like leather. The chemist alarms us, and then shows us the way of salvation through the laboratory. Nature, as we all know, provides vast quantities of t nitrogen in the atmosphere, and if only a [ means can be found of making it enter into combination with oxygen we shall 1 have an illimitable supply" of a fertilising agency which will enable the yield of wheat to be increased threefold and fourfold. -The rest of Professor Thompson's article is a description of the process whereby this result is being achieved. Chili saltpetre is now £11 a ton, and Sir William C*ookes hopes that nitrate of soda may be manufactured through elec-' trie energy at £5 per ton. This", it seems, is no mere dream, for the process of' manufacture is actually going forward in Norway. and there are good hopes that the result will be a commercial produce equal in value as a fertiliser to the Chilian and not greater in cost. We have described and discussed this process at various times during the last few years, and we are glad to hear that it is making progress. — How Population Would Be Checked. — " A w6rd. however, must be said about Professor Thompson's argument concerning the scarcity threatened on present conditions. The crisis which he predicts would not, in our opinion, come to pass in any case. Assuming all his estimates or Sir William Crookes's estimates to be correct — and there is a good deal to say about some of them — the human race would not starve on its crop of 3000 million bushels for the simple reason that the wheat-eating population would adjust itself to the wheat supply. There might be much temporary suffering in the adjustment, and" probably would be. if we were faced with the shortage at such com- j < paratively short notice as Profesboi 1 1

Thompson suggests; but we may be quite sure that if the -wheat supply could not be expanded beyond the needs of 666 millions of people, the wheat-eating population "would not amount to 819 millions in the year 1941, and still less to 893 millions in the year 1951. The shortage of. the wheat : supply! would instantly check the population, and the number of wheat-eaters in the world would eventually be fixed at the point at which the world could supply them with wheat.

— White Predominance and Wheat. —

" Since the wheat-eaters are the white men, and we can discern no similar cause tending to keep down the numbers of the yellow and black jaces, this would be a very serious thing for European civilisation, and would" point to the eventual domination of the, rice-eating races. We should have the ' Yellow peril' in a new form. The question, then, which the laboratory has to solve is, after all, an immensely important one, though it is not. in our opinion, precisely the question that Professor Thompson poses. In time to come the predominance of the white races may depend on the expansion of the wheat supply,^and if the chemist can solve the problem we, or another generation of us, may yet hail him as the greatest of benefactors." Here are some further extracts from the World's Work article :—: — — How to Produce . Increased Yields. —

"If the entire available territory is ,only sufficient to raise wheat for 666 mil- > lion persons (which number will be attained by the natural increase in the wheat-eating populations about the end of the year 1910), then either' the consumption per head must thenceforward be lessened, or eke some means must be found to increase the average yield per acre.

"Now the action of nitrate of soda in improving the yield of wheat has been studied practically by Sir John Lawes and Sir Henry Gilbert on their experimental field at Rotha.nißted, and they have shown .that 22.861b of nitrate of soda produces an increase of one bushel of wheat. But the reserve of Chili nitrate, vast as it is, cannot possibly meet the gigantic demand. The output of these mines has grown from about. 25,009 tone per annum I^lßso to over one and a-half million tons in 1906 ; and at the present rate the mines will be exhausted in a period estimated by various authorities at from 16 to 48 years "from the present time. Clearly, though the wheat famine may be staved off for i, time by drawing on the saltpetre beds of Chili, it is but for a time. And then the world must find some other source of nitrogen for fertiliser, or starve. "But in nine years much may be achieved. Chemist, electrician, and engineer, working in collaboration, with modern appliances and with an adequate natural supply of water power, may accomplish much — have accomplished much, indeed — thongh the achievement is still in its infancy. F*>r while various skilled inventors have been at work in various parts of the world, and various processes have been announced as more or less successful for fixing atmospheric nitrogen, three are actually at work on a commercial scale.

— Nitrogen From the Air. —

"In Scotland a company is manufacturing cyanide of soda for treating auriferous quartz in the gold-mining industry. In Berlin Professor Frank is absorbing nitrogen by means of carbide of calcium (itself a product of the electric furnace) to form cyanamide. In Norway a, fully equipped factory has been at work for. two whole years, turning out Norwegian saltpetre, the nitrate of lime, by the direct process of burning nitrogen in a special electric furnace, absorbing fche nitrous fumes in water as nitric acid, and combining the aoid with lime to furnish a marketable product." _,