Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1918-01-05
'UL aid FARMER
New Methods Of Obtaining Nj
trateS Most Important.
Getting Supply From Air Not Only Big
Factor in Natior's Defense But
in Enlarging Crops.

The National Geographic society
discussing the question of the pirate
supply OF the world points out that
as a result of the scientific expert
inents that have been going on for the
past two or three years, processes for
securing nitrogen from the air, as we'll
as others for securing it from our
coal deposits, promise to give us an
absolute independence of any other
nation in the world for nitrate supplies
In the future. The bulletin says:
The much-discussed issue of future
nitrogen supply seems TO have been
solved by scientists here and abroad
since the outbreak of the war in Eu-
rope. Heretofore the world has had TO
depend mainly upon the nitrate beds Of
Chile for the nitrogen. Many processes
for. extracting nitrogen from the air
where it is to be found in superabund-
ant quantities. since it constitutes
about three-fourths of all of our at
mosphere, have been developed, but
most of them have proved so expensive
as TO be prohibitiye except in times Of
emergency. Recently, however, there
has been discovered and put in use
a new process that is said to reduce
the horsepower required to extract a
given amount of nitrogen to zone
twelfth of the former proportion. The
result of this viii probably be that in
the years to come the world will find
a cheaper source of nitrogen right at
hand in the air than has ever been
found in the nitrate beds of Chile.
1t has also been found that through
the cooking process big supplies of nj
trogen can be extracted from coal. En-
gineers now estimate that if we were
to coke twice as much coal as we have
In the past, which would still be less
than 5 per cent Of our total coal out
put, the nitrogen that we could secure
therefrom would be more than enough
to meet all of our needs as a nation,
either in peace or In war. In the cox
ing of coal substance is recovered
which is called by the chemist ben
zol." The expenses OF recovery arc
not excessively great, and just at the
time when our government was an
nouneing that there was no real MI
trate deposit anywhere in sight in the
United States Of really important
value, the descriptions of the Haber
process of extraction from the air and
Of the processes for recovery from coal
have been most timely.
Not only win the new processes of
extracting bountiful supply OF nitro
gen from the air and from coal be an
advantage to us in the matter of de-
Tending our country. and in putting
it upon an Independent basis from a
world standpoint. but it will be an i'm
mense advantage TO us in our agricul-
ture. The most expensive element
that we have TO put into the soil to
farm probably is nitrogen. We ordi-
narily buy ii in the shape Of nitrate,
green bone, or decomposed animal mat
ter, and the farmers fertilizer bill is
always heavy if he wants to produce
large crops. A cheap source of nitro
gen, such as we might expect from a
system of cheap filtration from the air,
will enable the American farmer, large
as his crops may have been i'm the past,
TO produce two bushels of grain where
formerly he produced one, and to help
feed rapidly expanding world popu-
lation.