No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 229 



potash you get. Take then your nitrate of potash and calculate 

 the absolute amount, and after* that the value of the nitrate that is 

 in it; it would be possible to determine very easily and accurately 

 what is in it. It is simply a matter of calculation. 



DR. FUNK: The nitrate of soda will cost you about fifty-two and 

 the other will cost you about seventy-five. Now which is the 

 cheapest? 



PROF. OWENS: I have not determined it; I have not figured it 

 so am not prepared to say at the present time. 



MR. FENSTERMAKER: Give some information about the process 

 of extracting nitrogen from the air by electrical instruments, 



PROF. OWENS: I don't know; I havn't seen any statement of 

 the exact apparatus that is used. Prof. Harshberger, have you 

 seen that? 



PROF. HARSHBERGER: No, 1 don't know anything about that. 

 The nitrogen can be obtained by passing a very powerful current 

 through the air under certain conditions, but the processes, so far 

 as I have seen, have not been published. I have not noticed them 

 in any scientific journal, therefore more than that general statement 

 I could not give. 



MR. NELSON: I believe that the American Inventor described 

 that process completely. I wish I had brought it along. 



PROF. OWENS: I wish you had. 



MR. MILLER: Has the chemist succeeded in putting all farmers 

 to thinking, or what per cent? 



PROF. OWENS: That is a question I would like to have answered 

 myself. I am sure they are beginning to think, and farmers are 

 waking up, and when the time comes that they properly appreciate 

 the possibilities that are open to them, and when they utilize the 

 materials that are lying all around them, there will be accomplished 

 far better results. You have no idea of the amount of waste there 

 is all around us, until you begin to think of it. Coming here from 

 Williamsport yesterday, we came through certain sections of country 

 where we saw the remnants of thousands of pieces of lumber that 

 had been allowed to go to waste. You travel through Germany 

 and go into the forests there, and you will find them almost as free 

 from sticks as the streets and parks are here in the cities. After 

 every storm the women go out and gather up these things, or the 

 old men, or the children, so that nothing is wasted. Here you go 

 out into these forests and millions of feet of lumber are allowed 

 to go to waste. 



MR. HUTCHISON: Would that not improve that soil from the 

 farmers' standpoint. 



PROF. OWENS: It may leave a little potash and that is about 

 all. I only speak of that as one sample of the waste that goes oa 

 continually in this country, and the farmer fails to appreciate it; 

 there are of course, many other wastes. 



