Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1912-05-24


for have not the years
iookfn forward to it as a foregone
conclusion? Not because it was i'm
perative, like those problems that
the race must solve for it's very ex-
istence, but merely for the reason
that man in his god-like vanity must
perforce reach the very limit, if limit
there be, of his possibilities. So men
have learned to make wings that
adapt themselves in measure to the
air, and when the untamable winds
are complaisant they make their little
flights and say, I'VE have conquered
the sky Behold the sublime!-the
work of men," And the name of each
aerial adventurer is known and lauded
and passed from tongue to tongue.
To take that same free eternal air
and rend it as we rend the earth to
make metals, to make of it helpless
material in mems hands, answering
with indifference it's raging and blus-
tering, and to do not only that, but to
make it answer the most unanswer-
able riddle ever propounded by mother
earth-this is the work of one woman
And it is thousand to one you have
never even heard her name.
No, not strange, but only the worlds
way For one achievement is as re-
mantle and gratuitous as tourney of
knights in glittering ar1nor. But the
other is as humble as the baking of
loaf in the ashes. SO that | hesitate
to turn from the grandeur of flying
through the air to the making of fer
tiIizer from that air, lest be accused
of wiIIfully plunging from the sublime
to the ridiculous.
1t is not only impossible, being an
accomplished fact. but it is of an as
pect yet more sublime than aviation.
out of the air? There is a factory
now doing it in this country and an
other is being built, there are seven
or eight in Norway, and Sweden, Aus
tria, Germany and France have them
also.
Fertilizer is absolutely essential to
your life, because there is not SO
very much virgin soil left on the earth,
and much of what there is is uncul-
tivabie. And in spite of the rotating
of crops earth is becoming weary with
the immense strain of feeding her
aeeming millions. In the childhood of
the race she fed us freely, as moth
er should her babes. But as the race
grew UP thiRgs have changed, and
earth long since became like bank
into which we must first put some
thing if we would get anything out
The next age will behold still more
stringent state of affairs. for earth
will be seen to be holding over mans
head a mortgage, with the threat of
immediate foreclosure If the giant In
terest accruing be not met. Even
now things have reached a state
where practically every acre of land
under cultivation is first fertilized
The end Of the natural fertilizer is in
sight, which means that Mother
Earth has at last seen through cur
trick of paying our board bill with
something taken from herself, and is
putting a lock on the pantry door
What next? We must pay her or
starve, and pay her in advance in the
shape of so much fertilizer for so
much food. So the mad question be-
comes, .How shall we pay without
coin? Earth is our only supply Of
that, even as she is our only supply
Of food. And now she is withdrawing
the CON-
Could more impossible deadlock
be imagined!
And doesnr the deadlock become a
thing to amaze the stars when we
eonsider that one of the most needed