NEW ERA IN NITROGEN

Taranaki Daily News, 11 February 1928, Page 22

NEW ERA IN NITROGEN

MORE LIFE CM THE EARTH THE NEW SYNTHETIC PROCESS. TRIUMPH OF BRITISH GENIUS. A fascinating -vista of more life upon the earth was opened recently in the course of a remarkable address at Billingham by Sir Alfred Mond to the delegates to the Imperial Agricultural liesearch Conference.

“With the large-scale manufacture of synthetic nitrogenous fertilisers a new era,” Sir Alfred said, “has dawned on the world. It is the era of nitrogen fertilisers the sum total of life upon this planet 'was limited by the amount of available nitrogen. With their event the limit has been removed. Nature can no longer parsimoniously say to life, ‘Thus far shall thou go and no far then’ ”

In an interview. Sir Alfred explained the significance of the new process. “Civilised mankind has been, as it were, living,” he said, “on its accumulated capital of agricultural resources. The industrial revolution in the early years of the last century was accompanied by a radical change in the national balance with respect to foodstuffs. Pr< viously Great Britain had been self-supporting, but at that period she began to import food from foreign sources, and has been doing so to an increasingly greater extent ever since.

“This state of affairs might have gone on for ever if the external sources from which they came had been indefinitely great. As a matter of fact, however, civilised mankind was, so to speak, merely negotiating an overdraft. The tremendous agricultural developments in countries such as Canada and /usI—’Ha 1 —’Ha were due almost entirely to the fact that the lands on which they were made had not been broken up by modern agricultural methods since the beginning of time. “It is quite fair to say that at the present moment there are considerable reserves of. such untouched lands at the disposal of humanity, but the end is obviously in sight. We are undoubtedly drawing on the agricultural reserves of the world to a greater extent than they are being supplied by nature. THREE PRINCIPAL NECESSITIES. “Now the three principal agricultural necessities are fixed nitrogen, phosphates and potash. As regards phosphates and potash the natural mineral resources of the world are sufficiently great to satisfy the needs not only of this generation, but also of mankind for as long a period as is reasonable to contemplate. Of potash, in fact, there is an almost inexhaustible supply in the Dead Sea, and the development of that industry there is not only providing an alternative source of supply, but will encourage the whole of the future industrial development of Palestine. “Thinking men have never yet been alarmed by any prospect of a shortage in the production of phosphates and potash, but the question of a probable shortage of fixed nitrogen has exercised the best minds for a very long period past. Up till comparatively recent years the world’s sources of fixed nitrogen have been the nitrate fields of Chili, the byproduct ammonia of the coal industry, and the ordinary agents of nature —- namely, the nitrofying bacteria of the soil and certain plants, such as clover. The process for the fixation of the nitrogen of the air which has had the greatest success up to the present in one which had its origin in Germany., It has now been developed in this country and in a manner characteristic of our national genius. I am proud to say that the superior mechanical genius of my countrymen has- so far transformed the original German process as to make us the leaders in its economic production.

“What will be the immediate practical results of this new process ? While I shouh' hesitate to say that the inhabitants of this country will ever be independent of outside supplies of food, yet I can confidently predict a future in which the economic balance of this country will be maintained in a state far nearer true equilibrium than it is at the present time, and in one which from the far larger point of view of the Empire might be described as truly perfect. One result of this new process will be to mak? Great Britain one of the finest grass land pasturages of the world. “The demand for fertilisers is not confined to feeding : tuffs. It is also required for many of our essential raw materials, and will be more urgently required in the future. Sugar and cotton are excellent examples of what I mean. For these commodities the new fertilisers will ensure increased production, and will probably do so before they re* eeive the full credit for the results of their action.”

Had these new discoveries been delayed. for another quarter of a century, the whole fate of mankind might have been altered, Sir Alfred added. A disastrous harvest, for example, in one of the large agricultural regions of the world might even, he said, have had a repercussion which might have destroyed civilisation aa it is now known.