300 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLV. No. 1161 



freedom of the seas might be again sub- 

 jected to violation. 



The increased productiveness of the farm 

 land would render it possible in case of 

 war to enroll probably one third of the agri- 

 cultural laborers in the army, or shoxild 

 their services not be needed, to use them 

 for industrial enterprises or for the cultiva- 

 tion of additional land. How greatly the 

 employment of nitrates as fertilizers has 

 been increased in recent years is shown by 

 the fact that while in the three-year pe- 

 riod 1898-99, 10 per cent, of the nitrate 

 of soda used in the United States was thus 

 utilized, the figures for 1910-12 show an 

 average agricultural use of 45 per cent., 

 and in 1914 the percentage had risen to 55 

 per cent. 



The necessity for doing something to 

 stabilize the prices of nitrates is shown by 

 the wide range they have shown during the 

 past four years. The downward and up- 

 ward trend of the price per ton in this pe- 

 riod is reported as foUows : 



1913 $52.00 $43.00 



1914 44.50 38.00 



1915 37.50 80.00 



1916 80.00 85.00 



Thus the price toward the end of 1916 

 ($85) was more than twice what it had been 

 at the beginning of 1915 ($37.50). 



It is interesting to note that nitrate from 

 the Chilean beds was already used by the 

 Indians in the seventeenth century, both 

 for fertilizing purposes and in the making 

 of gunpowder.^ The immense quantity of 

 nitrate now taken by the United States and 

 by European countries appears in the fol- 

 lowing figures, giving the consumption for 

 the three-year period, 1910-12: 



TJmted States 1,509,700 tons 



Continent of Europe 4,852,180 ' ' 



United Kingdom 381,960 " 



6,743,841)' tons 

 3 ' ' The Nitrate Industry, ' ' by Senor Enrique 

 Cuevas; pub. by Chilean Nitrate Propaganda, New 

 York, 1916, p. 9. 



The farmer who trusts to self-seeding of 

 his land can use that land for pasture, but 

 rarely for crops; whereas he who carefully 

 sows his land, tills it, and enriches it, re- 

 ceives a splendid crop. As in the Parable 

 of the Sower, some seed fell on good land, 

 some on shallow land and rocky soil; some 

 brought forth a hundred fold, and some 

 blew away or was withered. So in the 

 struggle of life, great men will sometimes 

 arise from the lowest ranks in spite of aU 

 obstacles, but if many of these men had 

 had some opportunities for development 

 they would have attained their ends with 

 infinitely less trouble and probably would 

 have shown greater results. 



The vital importance of carrying on 

 drainage and irrigation work on an exten- 

 sive scale becomes more and more appar- 

 ent as the demand for agricultural prod- 

 ucts, both for home consumption and for 

 export, becomes greater and greater. The 

 public land stiU owned by the government, 

 largely desert tracts awaiting irrigation, 

 has been stated by Secretary Lane to have 

 an extent of 250,000,000 acres. This con- 

 stitutes a great and valuable reserve which 

 must be utilized in the near future. For, 

 even with the better fertilization, with the 

 more intense cultivation so imperatively 

 demanded, the rapid growth of our popu- 

 lation and of the foreign demand make it 

 necessary to enlarge our agricultural acre- 

 age to keep the prices of our stable prod- 

 ucts within reasonable bounds. 



The reclamation of swamps is one of the 

 most important problems of the present 

 time. Many of the best lands of America 

 are still in swamp form, and the sanitation 

 produced if this land were reclaimed would 

 more than pay for the work necessary, by 

 the increased healthfulness of the country. 

 The draining of the swamps is one of the 

 best means of destroying the breeding 

 places of the mosquito, and the extermina- 

 tion of the mosquito is one of the great 



