St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-06-10
NEW ELECTRICAL WONDERS,
The OLD World Not Behind the New in
Electrical Investigations.

Inc DIG World Not Behind the New in
Electrical Investigations.
We are told that steam has reached the eS-
IRENE limit of its profitable usefulness, and
that henceforth it must give way to the new
motor, electricity, and, having served its day
ofusefulness, be relegated in the near future
to the oblivion from which the genius OF
Watts rescued it.
Men who should know, and without doubt
do know, assure US that much as has been
done with electricity, its possibilities are
boundless, and that the most advanced cleo
trical explorers have as yet entered a field
whose limits are boundless. Already the light.
nings that terrified our barbarous ancestors
have become our obsdient messengers over
the land and under sea they convey written
or verbal speech; they dispel the darkness;
they Whirl US over space with a rapidity fol-
which we must go back to lightning for an
Illustration; but they to do yet more for
us-these good genii that were once the terror
of the ignorant.
During the past year Brother Paulin
Director of the Agricultural Institute
Bauvais, France, has been making electrical
experiments, in the promotion of horticul
ture, which must interest the present, and, il
they continue as they have begun, they must
have great influence on the food supply OF
the future. Professor Paulin's experiment
was almost as simple in its method as Frank
Inns appliance for drawing lightning from
the clouds.
In the middle of the ground selected for
his purpose, the professor erected tall pole
on which there was an ordinary lightning
xr,;kI ,%&,
the atmospheric electricity and convey it to
the earth. Attached to the rod were wires
which carried the current along the ground
and under the vegetables he had planted. All
the farmers and wiseacres, who, like their
fathers, had been carrying their grist to mill
with the grain in one end of the bag and
stone in the other, laughed at the professor,
but the crop that followed this experiment
fairly dazed and amazed them, and it de-
lighted the man who expected something
from his work, but nothing so startling.
Turnips treated in this way literally choked
the ground, and potatoes not only yielded
twice the quantity of former years, but the
tubers were Of extraordinary size and sound to
the core. Ali the other vegetables and fruits
near the magic wire hourished like the
about Bauvais, without being able to UNDER
stand the reason, are planning to erect light
ming rods in their fields, and place wires in
stead of the customary manure under their
garden rows.
The supposition is, and it may be right,
certainly no one is in position to contro-
vert it, that the marvellous effect has been
produced by the vivifying action of electric
ity on what are called the "nitrifying BAG
terra, !" that is the microscopic organism that
supplies in some mysterious way the essen
tial element of nitrogen to plants. As
Franklin's simple experiment was filed by
the most marvellous results, so we may
anticipate with certainty that in the near
future electricity, no matter where derived
from, will become an essential factor in
farming and that lands worn out and ADAM
doned as worthless, under this new and
magic stimulus, will again blossom like the
rose, and become more fertile than in their
paimiest days.
Russia is not usually regarded as land of
progress, but in that country it was demon
strated three years ago, that even during the
long winters in latitude 81 degrees north,
plants fourished under glass as vigorously
uhoci cicCeiIC ISuC DIS Wucu SuDiSSt1U TO the
direct rays Of the sun. By means OF this
light and artificial heat, it has been demon
strated that vegetables, fruits and flowers
can be grown as iuxuriantly i'll a cave up near
the North Pole as inside the tropics. In
deed, it is claimed by some that the fertility
OF equatorial lands is largely due to the
greater electrical action between earth and
sky, induced by or manifesting itself in FREE
quent violent storms accompanied by rain
and lightning.
Certainly we live in an age of scientific
maryels greater in their reality than the tic-
ton OF the fairy tales, yet the people who live
one hundred years from now may look back
upon the people OF this day much as:we now
do on the aborigines who regarded Coium-
bus as God. @,
There were L billion and half bushels of
corn raised In this country last year, over
half million bushels of oats. and a third Of
lx,cb alc Of xrho