1906] 



LANDRETH— THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 177 



with Other garden crops. It has been discovered that the electric 

 current is ineffectual on a wet and cloudy day, and positively injur- 

 ious on a very dry day. 



The processes of application may be generally described as fol- 

 lows : A plot of ground, say forty by forty feet or larger, for 

 example, a portion of a strawberry patch, is covered by a wire netting 

 two feet above the level of the crop insulated on wooden posts ; an 

 electric battery upon wheels is moved up close to the edge of the 

 wire netting and the wire of the positive pole attached to the iron 

 netting, the negative pole plunged into the earth ; the electric machine 

 is started and alternating currents are passed backward and forward, 

 jumping from the wire netting to the leaves and conversely from 

 the leaves to the netting. This appUcation of electric currents re- 

 peated at intervals, the wire netting being moved from part to part 

 of the crop, until in the end the whole field has finally been treated. 

 Of course, this system cannot be used over very broad surfaces, but 

 it has been put into practical use on areas as much as of three acres. 

 Professor Lemstrom estimated the cost of an efficient electrical ma- 

 chine at $500 and $150 as the annual cost of the material and extras. 

 A still newer, and probably the newest scientific application in 

 the line of '' the new agriculture," is the electrocution of insects, a 

 system just patented by an electrical engineer at Odessa, and in this 

 connection I will relate an interesting incident. 



Twenty years ago I was a special correspondent of a European 

 Ministry of Agriculture upon subjects concerning the development 

 of agriculture in America, and on one occasion, when I was asked 

 to report upon the phylloxera in the United States, I supplemented 

 the report by a suggestion that it might be possible to kill the phyl- 

 loxera by a,current of electricity passing through the stems and roots 

 of the grape vine. The Ministry of Agriculture in office at that date 

 thanked me for the suggestion, but said it was impractical; yet, 

 strange to say, this Russian electrical engineer has taken out patents 

 for doing this very special thing. If this be so, then by electricity, 

 capable, on the one hand, as a mighty force to rend a mountain, or of 

 a movement soft as zephyr, it may be possible yet to destroy every 

 bug on tree or plant, whether in the open field or in glass houses. 



