Makch 30, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



299 



chief rivals in the export trade. "Book- 

 learning" is singularly inefSeient in sueh 

 matters, however competent may be the 

 writers of manuals and guides ; only actual 

 contact with actual conditions will ever im- 

 part the kind and quality of knowledge 

 that go to build up a thoroughly successful 

 export business. The pleasant conditions 

 of such a trip, the bracing and animating 

 effect of the pure ocean air in transit from 

 port to port, during which the students 

 would have ample time to think over and 

 note down what had been learned, would 

 make this an unforgettable period in any 

 young man's life, a period in which the 

 foundations of his future success had been 

 laid. 



FERTILIZER AND NITRATES — DRAINAGE AND 

 IRRIGATION 



Two great problems in the United States 

 to-day are : First, Is not our land through- 

 out the entire country gradually becoming 

 poorer ? Is not our yield per acre becoming 

 less, except in a small percentage of the 

 land where modern methods have been 

 used? The second problem regards the 

 fact that the great cities of the country are 

 taking the product of the land and return- 

 ing none of it to the land, only piling up 

 garbage heaps which even when burned 

 are lost to the land whence the original 

 material was taken. 



In regard to the waste of valuable ferti- 

 lizers in the disposition of the refuse of 

 our great city of New York, the present 

 speaker, in 1912, used the following words 

 in a paper read at a meeting of the Amer- 

 ican Museum Association in New York:^ 



Here in the city of New York we are permitting 

 2,500,000 tons of refuse and human waste to go to 

 the garbage heaps, to the sewers, and to pollute 



2 Presented by Dr. George ¥. Kunz at the In- 

 ternational Conference relating to Program for 

 Celebration of the Centenary of the Signing of 

 the Treaty of Ghent, held in New York, May 9, 

 1913; p. 3 of reprint. 



the rivers, at once spoiling a valuable source of 

 food supply, and bringing disease to the inhabi- 

 tants of the city, while if this material could be 

 collected and spread over the barren fields of Long 

 Island and New Jersey, these tracts might be made 

 into garden spots of the earth. Furthermore, these 

 same chemical products, after being turned into 

 food and again into waste, could be utilized anew, 

 thus constituting a kind of endless chain of useful- 

 ness. Furthermore, the waste of nitrates in urine 

 alone represents over 50,000 tons annually. 



The unfavorable report of the United 

 States Geological Survey on the nitrate de- 

 posits of this countiy clearly shows that in 

 case of a sudden large demand arising from 

 a state of war, this country must depend 

 either upon the Chilean nitrate deposits, 

 or upon nitrate derived from the atmos- 

 phere. The National Defense Act of June 

 3, 1916, contains an appropriation of $20,- 

 000,000 for the establishment of a plant 

 for this purpose, and the European war has 

 shown that a belligerent cut off from out- 

 side sources of supply can obtain at least 

 part of the absolutely necessary nitrate, 

 both for munitions and for agricultural 

 fertilization, from the nitrogen in the air, 

 although it has recently been stated on 

 high authority that the great exponent of 

 efficiency in Europe has been unable to pro- 

 vide a sufficiency for land fertilization, and 

 that the productivity of the land is there- 

 fore decreasing rapidly. 



If the United States government would 

 establish three or more large depots of 

 nitrate, so located as to be within easy 

 reach of the various great agricultural com- 

 plexes, storing a million tons or more in 

 each one, the farmers would be able to 

 supply their wants at will, and the govern- 

 ment would be able to stabilize the price 

 of the nitrate sold to them. The stocks 

 could be constantly replenished, and would 

 thus at once serve as a source of supply for 

 agriculture, and also at a reserve for use in 

 case of a possible war, when the boasted 



