The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-10-10
ur1LrzrN THE AIR.

UTILIZIN THE AIR.
 F That human genius should be able to turn air into food for man and beast may seem chimericai. but 1t is not wholly so. sThose who know anything of the wonderful collaborative and distributive powers of nature are aware that all veg etable growth is to more or less extent dependent on both the air and the soil for support. To explain, as one author ity puts it.
 Nitrogen in various forms is a constit- uent of all plant and animal organisms Vegetable physiologists have established the fact that while nitrogen Is necessary to the existence or, plants. they cannot absorb it directly from the atmosphere. but must obtain 1t through the soil. Long continued cultivation robs agricultural lands of their supply of nitrogen. In other words. the farmer Is continually taking from the earth an important com pound which is limited in supply. Sev- eral scientists have said that nature would soon cease to honor the farmers in an address before the British Asso- citation ins 1898, called attention to the danger of serious shortage of the worlds wheat crop through the lessening amount of of s discussion. sS 'n Briefly, r science has given warning that unless some means of supplying the necessary nitro gen to the soil is found the world IS in danger of being reduced to short ra- tons.
 This extract shows the process by which plants absorb nitrogen, and the danger of a nitrogen famine, as we might express 1t. It is . law Of nature that matter cannot be destroyed. It goes from one form to another. but continues to exist in some shape. The nitrogen taken from the soil goes into the plants, and from them to the air. or into human and animal bodies. Part of it is returned to the soil through the numerous forms of fertilizers, but a large portion goes into the air. It is not absolutely lost, but goes beyond our reach. As this has al- ways been going on. it Is not surprising that there should be predictions of a time when the earth will fail to produce. These predictions are not new. but how to find a remedy is and has been the important question.
 More than a century and a quarter ago Dr. Joseph Priestiy. one of the most em- inent of English scientists, published a work entitled Experiments and Obse-- vations on Different Branches of Air." He was the real discoverer of oxygen, and in the course of his researches and ex- periments he discovered and demonstrated that nitrogen could be extracted from the air by the aid of electricity, but that was all that was accomplished. It remained for the genius of the American of the twentieth century to put this discovery to practical, commercial use. just as This is a commercial age and no people on earth realize 1t and act on it as the Americans do. A plant has been estab- lished at Niagara Falls. so we learn, where they are now turning out va- rious compounds of nitrogen in commer- cial quantities at low cost.'
 We do not, of course. know just what methods are employed. but through the immense water power of Niagara elec- tricity is generated, and through this tuC ALO&Gh io CAbA 0StS0 AASAA tAO air and transmitted. as we might express 1t. into fertilizer to be sent back to the earth. How this is done Is of little con- sequence to the public. but the fact that a necessary ingredient of growing crops is manufactured lin commercial quan- If the farmers and others are supplied at reasonable cost with one of the vital necessities of crop raising, they will not worry themselves over the methods by which that result is accomplished. That may remain a secret with the manufac- turers.
 But, inasmuch as nitrogen composes more than three-fourths of the air we breathe, and as animal life cannot exist without 1t, some may fear that this wholesale transmutation of 1t into another form may cause an air famine. In other words, in trying to avoid one form of famine we may precipitate another. and they reason that we may as well die for lack of something to eat as foR lack of something to breathe.
 That might be a real oanssrs OVs toE the fact, as already stated, that no form of matter is lost. The nitrogen extracted from the air IS returned to the soil. and from the soil 1t is taken up by all forms of plants, and through them returned to the air. It is a kind of endless chain process, by which matter goes through several processes and finally returns to the starting point The discovery. or rather the utilization of the discovery is a vitally important one. however we view it. Nor is there danger that the oper- ations at Niagara or at such other points as may be selected will exhaust the sup ply of nitrogen at those places. The air Is continually in motion, and thus what is taken up at one spot will be renewed from another. so that the general aver age will be kept up and all of us have a supply of air. We are not to have an air famine or bread famine. 80 Science announces.
 NOT A FEASIBLE SCHEME.