THE NITRATE PROBLEM.

Timaru Herald, Volume XC, Issue 13237, 18 March 1907, Page 3

THE NITRATE PROBLEM.

+, SIR WILLIAM CROKE.V DISCWLRY "England and all civilised cations stand ia deaci'y peril of having nothing to eit As mouths multiply food resources dwindle Land is a Jim ed quantity, and the land that will glow nhe.it is> phenomenally dependent upon diffacult and piecanous phenomena lam consti.uned to saj that om wheat pioducing soil is totally unequal to the sham pul upon it It is the chemist t at must tome to the icscue of the thieatened tcmmumtics It 1thiough the laboratory that ,stai\ation may ultimate'y be turned into plentv. ' Nine j earn ago Su Wii lam. Ciookes st.ll tied the thinking woild bv making these statements in the couise of his pie sidential .iddiess befoie the members, cf the Bi (ish Association at Bristol He opened the floodgate- of an exteni i\ e i.ew spapei couespondence, in whitvi eminent men of letter paiticipateJ. ihe distinguished scientist had given his subject until .ng investigation. He did not speak fioni an impulse, and his eftoit was not meiely theatrical—a theme foi gos. lp and notoi lely, Jn a subsequent leply to hs cntic\ he" held fast to Jus oiiginal aiguments, based, lie said, on a calm sui\ey of the woild's wheat movement, with a peep into futme lesomces in 1 elation to demand When, bn William mentioned that "it «* t' c eheiritt that must come to the lescue of the thieatened ccirmimitics,'' he hinted at vihat the cables have leccnUj been talking about. They hive stated that he and tv\o piofessors of the Fnbouig Uni veisity have discovered a process of ex flatting nitnc acid from the atmospheie, and thus leudeung it poss ble to greatly feitihse wheat lands and mciease their yields. Sll AA illiam 1 ad oulj an houi foi his addiess, and notwithstanding the lestnc ton, Ins ideas weie elaborately explained. The statistics aie inappiopuate aftei the lap'.e cf eight 01 nine veais, but the geneial conclusions hold good, and give appieciable illumination to the buef messages legardiag what leiding Bntish and German .scientists declaie to be "a discoveiy of snoimoiib importance "* The speakci emphasised that all ciope required what was railed a dominant manuie borne need mticgcn sVme pota' hj, otheis in the foim of ammonia 01 nitnc a«d. All ot ei constituents exist m the soil, and niUogen is mainly of atmosphenc oiigm, and is lender ed fixed by a slow and pre caiious piocess which lequnes a combiuation of raie meteoiplogical and geogiaphi cal enabling it to advance at a sufficiently rapid late to become of com mere al importance Theie aie 'evet.il sort* of available nitrogen The distiUation of coal in the process of gas making jield* a certain, amount of its nitiogen m the form of ammonia, but the quantitj pio duced s compaiatively small Foi a long tim& guano h«s been one of the most jinpoitant "source, of nitiogenous manuie, but guano deposits aie now so near exhaustion that they may be dismissed fiom consideiation Unless , the absdacted nitiogen is letumed to the soil its feitil ty mui t ultimately be exhausted.

T_e stoie of'mliogen m the atmospheie is pracucalh unlimitol, olid it is Axed and lendeied assimilable by plants only, by cosmis piocesses vitli exlieme slowness R\ ery iquaie jaid uf the eaith's suiface has "uitiogen gas piesswg idoun on it to the extent of about *e\eu tors, Ibut this , ii, iu a free state, and wheal demands it faxed For ycis past attempts have been made to effect the fixation of atmosphenc nilio gen ,and some of the pioce ses, ha-\e met with sufficient paitial succe-s (o uauact eipenmentalist's iu pushing then tnals still fuithei Xo pioces l -, houe%ei, has been bioug i to the notice of scientific ui lonrmeiuoi men vh.th can be considei ed successful either as legaids cost 01 jield of pioduct . The fixation of atmosplieiic nitiogen, theiefoie is one of the gic.it dis co\enes auaitng the mgeiiuiU of chemists Vn)e >. ■» e can class it among the ceitam ties to come, the gieat Caucasian will (ease to be foiemosl in the noild, and Mill be squeezed ou'i of existence bj laces to übom wheat and bread is not the staff of life As I fji bick as 1892 I exhibited at oce of the sonee<- of the Rojal fcocietj au ev peiimei t "the flame of burning nitiogen' 1 showed that mtiogeu i a combustible 1 gas, and the leason lrhei once gnited the tlame does not apiead Ihiongh the atmos pheie and deluge tie -noild in a sea of mtiic acid was that its igniting point is lvgher than the temperature of its flame, not t! erefore liot enough to .\et fire to the adj-jcent niixtuie. But by passing a, strong induction uuirent between the teiminals the nitrogen takes tiie and continues to burii with a powerful flume, producing i.ilrous and nitric- acids. This inconsiderable experiment may not-unlikely lead to the development of a mighty iudustiy. iJesiiued to solve the great food" problem:

With the objca of burning out mitogen f 1 oiii dii so ■!<> to !e.nc iiigon hehind, Loid Kaleigb. fitted up apparatus and succeeded in effecting the union of 29 4 gramme, of nn\ed nitrogen and o\jgen at an evpen dituie of one horsepower IVowing tiie=e iiguies ,lt vould lequire one Bond

of Trade unit to form 74 grapimes of i>itutte of sode, and theieloie 14,000 units lu form one ton. To geneiate e'ectiieity in the ordinaly way iviJi steam cngints and dynamos, 'it is ton- possible (lb98), wit'lii ii steady load night and day and engines working al maximum efficiency to produce current al a lu t of one-(hira of ;i penny per Board of Tiade unit. At this rate one ton of nitrate-of soda would cost £26. The electricity from coal and steam engines is tco costly for huge industrial purpotLV. At -Niagara, wneie water-power is used, electiicity can be sold at a profit for oEe-sevenleentli of a penny per Board of Trade unit. At this rate nitrate of soda would cost not uyJie . than £5 a ton. Before we decide that electric n.trate is a commercial possibi.ity a final question must be mooted. We stall.' witn a shortage of wheat, and the only lemejy is to put more land under cultivatidn. As the land cannot be stiotcheJ, and there is so much of it and no more, the object is to lender ihc availab'e area moie productive by a. dress.ng wi\. nitiatc of soda. But nitiate of soda is limited in quantity, and will soon be exhausted. Human ingenuity can contend with even these artificially by. a. combustion of the atmosphere. Here we come to finality in one uiieetion. Our stores are inexhaustible, but what about electric.ty ?, Can we generate enough energy to produce 12,000,000 tons of nitiate of i.oda annually? A pieliminary calculation shows there need be no fear on that scene. Niagara, alone is capable of supplying the leqUiiied electrical energy without much lessening its mighty flow, and the artificial production- of nitrate is cleaily within view, and by its aid'the land 1 devoted to W. eat. can be brought up to The 30 bushels per acie standard. .In days to come, when the demand may again oveitake the i-upply. we may siifc'y leave our successors to grapple with the stupendous food problem. And in the nex -generation, instead of trusting mainly to food stuffs which flourish in tempera'.e climes, we probably shall trust more and more to the food-tuffs of the tropics, where, instead of one yeaily sober haivest, jeopardised, by any shrinkage of the scanty days of summer weather, or of the-' few steady inches of rainfall, nature supplies heat, and water enough to lipen two or tluee successive nop.* of foodstuffs in extraordinary abundance. To mention one plant Humboldt, ftom what precise statistics I know ■not} computed that, acie for acre, 'the food productiveness of the banana is 133 times (hat- of wheat. The unripe banana., befoie its starch U converted into -sugar, is said to in;,ke excellent bread.