126 Master Minds of Modern Science 



second method is to turn night into day by means of 

 electric light. This was tried at the Royal Botanic 

 Gardens by the late Mr Thwaite, and it worked well. 

 At the end of four days tomato plants grown under the 

 electric light were four inches higher than those in another 

 house where the plants had not been so treated, while 

 chrysanthemum plants thus treated were two inches 

 taller. 



The third and more usual method is to run overhead 

 wires above the field or plot and pass the current through 

 these at a high potential. When there is no wind one can 

 hear the fizz of the charge coming off the wires, and in 

 the dark there is a faint glow visible. 



The writer asked Sir Daniel Hall whether electrification 

 was going to help the farmer. He answered that he did 

 not know. That passing a current through overhead 

 wires does increase the growth of the plants beneath the 

 wires seems beyond doubt, but at present the cost of the 

 installation is very heavy, and the benefit obtained does 

 not appear to compensate for the money spent. In any 

 case, electricity will not serve as a substitute for fertilizer. 

 As Sir Oliver Lodge once said: " Stroking a plant is not 

 equal to feeding it." 



But if electro-culture is still more or less in the air, the 

 electric farm — that is, the farm run by electric power — is 

 a notable success. There are already some eight hundred 

 of these farms in the country. At a small two-men farm 

 of seventy acres, where the cows are milked by machinery, 

 the saving over hand-labour is eleven pounds thirteen 

 shillings a year. On separating the milk the saving is 

 five pounds sixteen shillings. On pumping water the 

 saving is six pounds eight shillings and fourpence, and on 

 chaff-cutting nearly two pounds. 



But the largest increase of profit is in the electrified 

 poultry-yard. In a hen-house lighted and heated by 

 electricity the yield of eggs in winter is increased fifty 



