496 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



The present consumption of nitrogen in fertilizers in the United 

 States is about 200,000 tons per annum. The capacity of the Govern- 

 ment plant at Muscle Shoals, now idle, is 40,000 tons per annum. 

 From 1899 to 1914 the consumption of fertilizer in the country prac- 

 tically tripled ; i. e., an average rate of increase of 7^ per cent a year. 

 The rate of increase during the last five years of this period was even 

 greater. Since the slump in 1915 and 1916 further comparisons have 

 been difficult, owing to the disturbed economic conditions throughout 

 the world. 



If the price of fertilizer were low enough, there is for practical 

 purposes almost no limit to the amount that could be advantageously 

 used as our people come to understand its use and importance. It 

 has been estimated by Dr. Jacob Lipman, director of the New Jersey 

 xlgricultural Experiment Station, that the annual loss of nitrogen 

 from all land under cultivation in the United States which is not 

 replaced by manure, by the nitrogen supplied by plowing under 

 leguminous crops, by atmospheric precipitation in the form of rain 

 and snow, and by the present use of commercial fertilizer amounts 

 to between 3,000.000 and 4,000,000 tons of nitrogen. To replace all of 

 this would take from 15,000,000 to 20,000,000 tons of sulphate of 

 ammonia, or from 150,000,000 to 200,000,000 tons of ordinary com- 

 mercial mixed fertilizer. 



It would not now nor in the immediate future be expedient to use 

 fertilizer to any such extent on all of the land under cultivation, but 

 these figures suggest at least an upper limit to the use of nitrogen in 

 fertilizer, and show how far from that limit the present consump- 

 tion is. 



No large nitrogen-fixation industry exists in this country to-day. 

 Our requirements for nitrogen are ever increasing, and these facts 

 make it imperative that we have a thorough knowledge of all proc- 

 esses now in operation and vigorously prosecute research to keep us 

 abreast of developments. 



ESTABLISHMENT OF THE LABORATORY. 



After the armistice was signed, the Fixed Nitrogen Research 

 Laboratory was established by the Secretary of War (March 29, 1919) 

 in order to coordinate the knowledge which had been obtained con- 

 cerning nitrogen fixation by the War Department during the war, 

 to obtain further information necessary for the peace-time utiliza- 

 tion of the Government nitrate plants at Sheffield and Muscle Shoals, 

 Ala., and to study in general the fixation and utilization of nitrogen. 

 On July 1, 1921, the Fixed Nitrogen Research Laboratory was trans- 

 ferred by Executive order to the United States Department of Agri- 

 culture. ^ For the fiscal year July 1, 1922, to June 30, 1923, the labora- 

 tory began operation with a budget of $264,000. Economies in per- 

 sonnel, purchases, etc., reduced the actual expenditure to $217,000. 

 Authority for this work is contained in the national defense act of 

 June 3, 1916, specifically authorizing the President to " * * * cause 

 to be made such investigations as in his judgment are necessary to 

 determine the best, cheapest, and most available means for the pro- 

 duction of nitrates and other products for munitions of war and use- 

 ful in the manufacture of fertilizers and other useful products by 

 water power or any other power." 



