42 ELECTRICAL STRUCTURE AND 



CHAPTER III 



THE EMPLOYMENT OF ELECTRICITY IN 

 AGRICULTURE 



IT is now more than a hundred and fifty years ago 

 that a Scotsman named Maimbray attempted to stimulate 

 growth by electrifying the soil, and since then experiments 

 on a large scale have been and are being carried out at 

 Helsingfors, Brodtorp, Breslau, the Durham College of 

 Science at Newcastle-on-Tyne, and elsewhere ; the method 

 employed being high-tension electricity, usually generated, 

 I believe, by a Wimshurst machine or machines, and carried 

 by a network of bare wires strung upon insulators affixed 

 to poles some six feet or so in height, and covering the field 

 in which the vegetables are grown. 



The results have occasionally, it may be frequently, 

 been satisfactory, but I cannot help thinking that, as a 

 matter of possibility, they may have been due to the 

 formation of nitrous oxides at the sparking points, and that 

 better results may be obtained by studying Nature's 

 methods and endeavouring in a more modest and in- 

 expensive way to improve upon them. 



I am reminded, in fact, of high-frequency treatment of 

 the human body. It does not rest upon any definitely 

 ascertained scientific basis, and might be relegated to the 

 scrap-heap without injury to mankind. 



While my observations upon this subject are specu- 

 lative, in that no experiment upon a sufficient scale has yet 

 been made with low-tension continuous currents, we have 



