644 



HORTICULTURE 



December 28, 1918 



COMMERCIAL HORTICULTURAL CHEMICALS 



F. A. Wilson of Nahant, Mass., has 

 kindly prepared for us the following 

 abstract of a recent address by him 

 before the Horticultural Club of Bos- 

 ton. We regard It as a very valuable 

 contribution on a very vital subject. 



In the free and mostly untrammel- 

 led operations of trade In normal 

 times, but few people have any op- 

 portunity to see at their true values 

 the importance of certain essential 

 materials. "Easy come, easy go", the 

 saying is, and a carefree use and 

 consideration is natural and habitual. 

 For the same reason the vital ele- 

 ment of transporation is imconsidered 

 — most persons do not realize what is 

 involved. It is only in the stress of 

 our war emergency that the public 

 has studied eagerly the reasons for 

 one or another scarcity or curtail- 

 ment — and have learned that trans- 

 portation is one great vital factor of 

 modern living conditions, and a factor 

 made all important by the congestion 

 of population; in fact these two ele- 

 ments are closely allied — for better 

 transporation made congestion of pop- 

 ulations and the latter made the best 

 transporation methods a prime neces- 

 ity. 



Among the things which we of the 

 horticultural profession have especi- 

 ally noticed is the shortage of our im- 

 portant chemicals Nitrogen, Phos- 

 phorous and Potash — or, which is the 

 same thing, of their important com- 

 pounds which we commonly use. A 

 chemical also of service, though less 

 directly, is Sulphuric Acid. This acid 

 is made commercially from materials 

 obtained in our country, but the un- 

 usual demand has outrun the supply. 

 Yet tremendous possibilities for its 

 manufacture are about us. Large 

 smelter stacks waste sulphur com- 

 pounds easily turned into sulphuric 

 acid — but unfortunately these are not 

 always conveniently near the place of 

 demand — and always it must be re- 

 membered that with chemicals which 

 are used so largely the price is com- 

 paratively low and transportation 

 charges may amount to a large per- 

 centage. Sulphuric acid combined 

 with ammonia yields ammonium sul- 

 phate, much used in agriculture; and 

 with the phosphate rocks, of which 

 there is no dearth to get the "super- 

 phosphates" (soluble calcium phos- 

 phate) commonly used as fertilizer. 



Nitrogen is a dull, inert chemical — 

 present to a large extent in our at- 

 mosphere, but difficult to obtain be- 



cause of its lack of affinity for any 

 other material. Nitric acid or ammon- 

 ia — the two are interchangeable ma- 

 terials — is involved in the making of 

 all high explosives and vital (through 

 easily made compounds) to agricul- 

 ture; thus it feeds guns or men — and 

 is of equal importance tfl all nations 

 everywhere. Used with toluene, cot- 

 ton, and glycerine, nitric acid yields 

 trinitrotoluene, gun cotton and nitro 

 glycerine; ammonia combined with 

 sulphuric acid yields ammonium sul- 

 phate for fertilizer, and with nitric 

 acid yields ammonium nitrate used 

 with trinitrotoluene for high explo- 

 sives. 



The nitrogen question has become 

 extremely Important. The world's 

 supply came from the Chilean nitrate 

 beds in the form of nitrate of soda, 

 itself a soluble compound for fertili- 

 zer, and one easily treated to produce 

 nitric acid — but in its treatment sul- 

 phuric acid is used, thus affecting our 

 supply of fertilizers in the making of 

 which sulphuric acid is also needed. 

 Transportation cut off this nitrogen 

 supply and greatly stimulated other 

 means of production most of which 

 were pre war methods, practical 

 enough but yielding a result only at 

 a greater cost. These are all proces- 

 ses for getting atmospheric nitrogen. 

 Among them is one notable electrical 

 process — the Birkeland-Eyde Process 

 — which has proven especially use- 

 ful where cheap electricity is avail- 

 able from water power. This means 

 that in our own country electricity 

 from fuel mu^t chiefly be used at a 

 greater expense — and adding a com- 

 plication to the fuel question. There 

 are several other methods — two of 

 which are represented in government 

 plants in this country. One at Shef- 

 field, Alabama, gets nitrogen from 

 liquid air and combines it with hydro- 

 gen at high pressure and tempera- 

 ture to get ammonium nitrate — the 

 product of this plant will be about 

 20,000 tons a year. Another plant at 



Mussel Shoals, Alabama, is expected 

 to yield ammonia at a lower price 

 than other methods getting nitrogen 

 from the air. The capacity is over 

 100,000 tons a year. 



It is interesting to note that plati- 

 num, which people have been asked to 

 conserve by abstaining from platinum 

 jewelry, is used to produce a phenom- 

 enon known as catalysis. Its mere 

 presence in a mixture of materials 

 from which nitric or sulphuric acids 



is made hastens the process of chemi- 

 cal combination. Substances which 

 do this are called catalysts. The phe- 

 nomenon is understood and used, but 

 not explained — and it would not be 

 surprising to find it playing a part 

 in plant and animal life which may 

 be diverted to practical service. So 

 far as platinum is concerned, a cata- 

 lyst used thus indirectly in the mak- 

 ing of food for guns and men, the 

 only considerable supply now known 

 is in Russia. 



The third chemical now considered 

 of paramount importance to agricul- 

 ture is potash. The world's natural 

 supply of this is in Alsace-Lorraine — 

 until now controlled by Germany for 

 fifty years. Under skillful exploita- 

 tion perhaps too much potash for 

 food crops has been used — it Is cer- 

 tain that our diminished supply has 

 been in part counteracted by other 

 means and materials. In 1917 we only 

 used in this country about one fifth 

 of our pre war demands. More seems 

 to be needed Bast than West — an 

 item to be considered in looking for 

 an available supply which may lessen 

 transporation costs. 



There are certain natural deposits in 

 this country, but not enough for needs, 

 and in the West— away from place of 

 greatest use. Potash can also be ob- 

 tained from cement kilns and blast 

 furnace flues and wood ashes — in 

 small quantities at present, but capa- 

 ble of development. Giant kelp of 

 the Pacific Coast yields a supply— but 

 also involving transportation costs. 

 Nearly ten percent of the potash used 

 in our country in 1917 was derived 

 from molasses. The industry in this 

 country is small but promising— and 

 we may soon be fairly independent 

 of imports. 



It was said that ammonia and nitro- 

 gen were about equally valuable for 

 the production of important com- 

 pounds. Ammonia is produced chief- 

 ly as a by-product in the manufacture 

 of illuminating gas— and is also a by- 

 product in the making of coke. Coke 

 ovens have commonly wasted this, as 

 well as important coal tar products — 

 but more efficient installations are 

 remedying this trouble. This war de- 

 mand for ammonia cannot be satis- 

 fied by these means, however, unless 

 coke is overproduced— with a result- 

 ing strain on our fuel situation. 



Chemistry plays an important part 

 in industry — and in nearly all 

 branches of it. Important research 



