April 13, 1917. 
NiGURAR Hecht (Rh EB. Rik bea 
Germans Hungry Because Soil Not Fed as Formerly 
Lack of Proper Cultivation and Fertilization 
Reduces Home Supply of Food Nearly One-half 
By ROBERT S. BRADLEY * 
HILE Germany may break the laws of humanity with 
impunity, she cannot successfully combat the laws of 
nature. Food sufficient to support human life is no more 
essential to Germany than are fertilizers to grow her crops 
upon lands whose natural fertility has long ago been 
exhausted by constant cropping, and where the soil has 
been forced to yield abnormal crops through a system of 
the most intensive kind of farming—thorough cultivation, 
heavy fertilization and systematic rotation of crops. 
By such methods Germany has been able to produce 
wheat at the rate of over thirty bushels per acre, against 
the average yield of the United States of but twelve to 
fourteen, ‘other crops being produced in a like ratio. In 
this way Germany has been able to produce about eighty- 
five percent of her requirements of food crops under nor- 
mal conditions. 
At present, however, she lacks the labor for elaborate 
cultivation of her fields, and must grow the crops most 
needed, regardless of their economical rotation. But 
these are of minor importance compared with her need 
of plant-foods required to maintain the extraordinary pro- 
ductiveness of her fields, which has only been made pos- 
sible heretofore by the use of enormous quantities of 
nitrates, phosphates -and potash. 
While Germany controls practically the world’s sup- 
ply of potash, she has no deposits of nitrates or phos- 
phates and has to depend upon other countries for these 
plant foods, both of which are far more important to the 
growing of crops than potash. In fact, potash was never 
used as a fertilizer until about 1875, while the manufac- 
ture of chemical fertilizers was begun about 1845 and be- 
caine a thriving industry long before the discovery of 
potash. 
While nitrogen gives the plant a quick start, imparts 
vitality and grows the foliage, and while potash strengthens 
the stalk and fibre and i improves the quality of some crops, 
it is the phosphoric acid which produces the grains, tubers 
and fruits and matures the crops. 
Germany has imported no nitrates nor phosphates for 
two and a half years, and* without these essential plant 
foods she cannot maintain her abnormal crop production. 
Lands which have been heavily fertilized for many years 
fast lose their productiveness when fed on short and in- 
complete rations, especially after the first year of such 
curtailment. 
Under existing conditions, therefore, it is hardly pos- 
sible that Germany can produce even 50 percent of her 
required food crops, as against 85 per cent in normal 
times. This shortage must be increasing rapidly and is 
reflected in the food riots, the protests of the Socialists of 
the Reichstag and even in the admissions of the comp- 
troller of foods, as well as in the recent seizing of all 
food supplies by the Government. It may also account in 
large measure for the ruthless and desperate methods to 
which the German army and navy have resorted to end 
the war. 
It has been claimed that Germany is obtaining her 
nitrates from the air. She started this process long be- 
fore the war, but its manufacture is expensive and the 
output limited to the amount of electricity available for 
its production. It is very doubtful if Germany produces 
much more nitrate from the air than she requires for her 
enormous demands for explosives. 
Again it is argued that Germany is using basic slag in 
place of phosphates. This slag is a by- product from “the 
manufacture of steel from phosphatic iron ores, and its 
supply is therefore dependent upon that industry. _ Ger- 
many has for many years used large quantities of this 
phosphatic slag on certain soils and crops, but it is wholly 
insoluble in water and does not take the place of the solu- 
ble super-phosphates, which she has heretofore used in 
addition to the slag and which can be produced only from 
mineral phosphates, imported principally from the United 
States, Algeria and Tunis. 
To feed her people, Germany must grow food crops, 
and to grow food crops she must feed “her lands. The 
latter is as vital to her existence as the former. 
“(Reprinted from Boston Transcript. Robert S. Bradley 
both as chairman of the Board of the American Agric ultural 
Chemical Company and from numerous trips to Germany just 
before the war, has had nearly perfect opportunities of knowing 
German agric¢ ultural conditions. His companies use enormous 
quantities of potash, which is practically a monopoly of Ger- 
many’s. Many of the companies’ contracts for this expired 
just before the war and in renewing them Mr. Bradley experi- 
enced much of the ‘‘paternalism’’ of the German system of 
government, which reached even so far as the passing of special 
legislation discriminating against the American companies. Mr. 
Bradley’ s views are thus of unusual importanée.) 
Miss Helen C. Burnham assisted Miss Mary Wheel- 
wright in the arrangements for the mass meeting in Bos- 
ton Wednesday in “the interest of the Navy League of 
the United States. On the committee in charge ‘of the 
meeting were many prominent women of the North Shore. 
Miss F; rances Bradley had charge of a staff of ten young 
women ushers. 
+ 
Oswald Kunhardt, the Gomen consul at Boston, who 
has made his home with Mr. and Mrs. Robert Stoops, 
School street, Manchester, the last year, is among the 
consular agents affected by the breaking of relations be- 
tween the United States and Austria. Mr. Kunhardt held 
a dual position in this district, as he represented Austria- 
Hungary, as well as the Imperial government at Berlin. 
His district included practically all of New England. He 
has been in Boston for more than a dozen years, and dur- 
ing much of that period he lived in Manchester summers 
making his headquarters at the Essex County club much 
of the: time; since the war in Europe he has lived in Man- 
chester the year round. Mr. Kunhardt has many friends 
in Boston and along the North Shore. He is only 42 
years old, but, as he remarked to the writer sone time 
ago, he has lived in this country more than he has in 
Germany, as he left there when only 18. Baron Erich 
Zwiedinek, who has been chargé d’ affaires of the Austrian 
embassy since the recall of Dr. Dumba, also spent several 
seasons at Manchester, prior to the war, being in the 
Brown cottage, School street, the summer of 1914. 
The eager hunger for the almighty dollar leads most 
Americans to sacrifice their time, health and liberty in 
the acquisition of wealth, and alas. when they have ac- 
auired it, they find that their health is broken, and that 
they themselves are almost ready for the grave. Ought 
a free and independent people to live after this fashion? 
—Wu Ting Fang. 
