JOURNAL 
OF 
The New York Botanical Garden 
VoL. XVI January, 1915 No. 181 
THE INFLUENCE OF RADIO-ACTIVE EARTH ON 
PLANT GROWTH AND CROP PRODUCTION* 
With Plates CXLII-CLI. 
the time of the discovery of radium, anthracite coal 
represented about the highest known degree of stored energy. 
7 t 
smaller bodies and the liberation of the energy of these particles. 
As a result of this great difference, radium can perform work 
only of a totally different character from that performed by 
ordinary ‘substances. It is the dream of the physicist to dis- 
cover a method by which the energy of radium can be exe 
without this dissolution of its atoms, the effect of which car 
be revolutionary in the mechanical world. 
It has been claimed by some French pean na that they 
have already solved this problem, and t ey have found 
several vie of applying radium in the oo of mechan- 
ical work, but the claim appears improbable. So far as the 
ffect: 
penetrating and easene through almost all substances and pro- 
ucing their effects as they go 
*Lecture delivered at the New York Botanical Garden on November 14, 
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