Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-04-18
AIR, AIR, EVERYWHERE
NOT A LOAF TO EAT!
This Cry, Like the Ancient Mari
ner's, Might Ring Out in the Fu-
ture If 1t Weren't for the
Nitrogen-fiXing Process

FNHE Ancient Mariner, as every one knows,
i found himself, on an interesting occasion.
drifting around in circles on an immense
ocean of brine, whilst he noted with dlsmay
ever-ncreasing dryness of the throat. He
was dying of thirst amidst hudty in abund
ance, and though the pretty howdydo he was
in produced an immortal poetical line (shall
we quote it yet once more?), it did not pro-
duce an inventive genius board to extract
drinking water from the salty seas.
That line had better be quoted again. for it
is usually misquoted 1t isn't Water, water,
everywhere, and not n drop to drink" but:
Water. water. everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
If it were not for inventive genius they tell
us, the world would be an Ancient Mariner
some day, crying Nitrogen, nitrogen, every
where; nor any bread to eat!" For nitrogen
is the Indispensable fertilizer of the SOIL the
worlds supply, as it has been obtained, is run
ming out; and yet-four- -fifths of the atmos-
pheric sea this planet cleaves. four-fifths of
this common air we breathe. is nitrogen. This
nitrogen is free; that Is, it Is not chemically
combined with the oxygen Of the air; but the
problem of using it for the production of the
invaluable nitrates. the problem of fixing" it,
was nsurmountable in more than century
of research and the great achievement is only
a few years old.
The Vanishing Fertilizers
The best proof of the pudding is in the high
price we have to pay to eat It. The most eX-
penslve foodstuffs are those which contain
most nitrogen. for the simple reason that there
is, and always has been, a shortage of nitroge-
nous foods in the world. Agriculture furnishes
Mi Sub
stances, whether we eat them directly as vege-
table products indirectly animals which
have assimiated the proteids from plants. 1t
so happens that by our Unbalanced methods
of agriculture we take nitrogen from the soil
much more rapidly than it is supplied to the
soil through natural agencies.
We have tried to remedy this discrepancy
by enrching the soil with manure or other
fertilizers but this has been found totally in
sufficient especially with our methods of in
tensive cuture-Our fields need more nitrogen.
So agriculture has been looking anxiously
around to find new sources of nitrogen ferti-
lizer. For short time an excellent supply
was found in the guano deposits of Peru, but
IL was sought so eagerly that the supply lasted
only few years. The ammonium salts re-
covered from the by-products OF the gas works
came into steady use as fertilizer; but here
principal source of nitrogen for agriculture,
we'll as for the industries which require salt
peter or nitric acid has been Of late the nat
ural beds of sodium nitrate in Chill. 4,
saItpeter brings us to explosives and pre-
paredness. and the Senate the other day
voted an amendment into the army increase
bill providing s15OOOOOO for a Government
hydro-electric plant 10 produce nitrates for
war munitions and fertilizer, too.
Crookes' Terrible Warning
But the real call to arms that led to such
far-seeing enterprise was sounded by Sir VIII
liam Crookes in 1898. He called attention TO
the threatening fact that at the increasing
rate of consumption the nitrate beds of Chill
would be exhausted before the middle OF this
century 1t was a warning to the human
race, raised by one of the deepest scientific
thinkers Of our generation. 1t meant no less
than that before long the race would be con-
fronted with nitrogen starvation. The less
nitrogen there is available as foodstuffs the
nearer the population is to starvation
The great famines in India, China and Rus
sia countries that are deficient in nitrogen,
are examples of nitrogen starvation.
Crookes' warning did not worry the poll
ticians. but TO the men of science It was a
reproaeh The problem was solved. The
needed nitrogen viii be forthcoming from
the air. But no sooner had science bestowed
this boon than ungrateful humanity, in its
slipshOd economy, set about belittling it by
running it into the ground with an over
production problem. The question arises, VIII
there be an overproduction and will the rival
processes for obtaining nitrogen kin each
other BY slaushtering prices beyond remnn-
eratiye produetlon1
! Rlitreeen fertlllzsEs are already Asa at Tie