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The Seaforth News, 1934-07-12, Page 7THURSDAY, JULY 12, 1934. THE SEAFORTH NEWS 1ssils.7777`.: PAGE SEVEN. t.Is•rr r ritl�Nfrvraassall ur�rr�rit�ra�r t - I I. 1 I I 1 I •O•u p licate - Monthly Statements We can save you money on Bill and Charge Forms, standard sizes to fit ledgers, white or colors. It will pay you to see our samples. , Also best quality •iMletal Hinged Sec- tional Post Binders and Index. • 1 The Seaforth News j Phone; 84 I 1 i v purn•nrasa•aru.....uu......aa�.raaannru-man-meaty o A DOLLAR'S WORTH Clip this coupon.and mail it with $l for a six weeks' trial subscription to THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR Published by THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING SOCIETY Boston. Ivtassaahuaotts, II. 8. A. • In 1t you will and the dally goad news of the world from its 800 special w,'Itera, ns well ea departments devoted to women's and children's interests, sports, music, finance, edacatlon, radio, eta You will be glad to welcome into your home so fearless an advocate of.peace and prohibition. And don't. miss Snubs, Our Dog, d the a sundial and the other features. THD oNs1000nN aa1ENco MONITOR, Baolc bBay Station,. Boston, Mass. Please send me a slx weeks' trial subscrlptlon, I enolase one dollar ($1), (Nome, please print) (Address) (TOwn) (State) Services We;Can Render In the time of need PROTECTION is your best !friend. Life Insurance —To protect your LOVED ONES. Auto Insnrance— To protect you against LIABILITY to PUBLIC and their PROPERTY. Fire Insurance To protect your HOME and its CONTENTS. Sickness and Accident Insurance— To protect your IN'CIOME Any of the above Tines we can give you in strong and reliable companies, 1:c interested, call or write, E. C. CHAMBERLAIN INSURANCE AGENCY Phone 334 Seaforth, Ont D. H. McInnes Chiropractor Electra Therapist — Massage Office — commercial ,Hotel Hours—lits and ,Thurs. after- noons and by appointment FOOT CORRECTION • by manipulation—.Sun-ray treat- ment ,Phone 227. • CHEMICAL FERTILIZERS Three ,hundred years ago the Bel- gian, physician and alchemist Jan Baptista Van IIelusont proved, to his own satisfaction at 'least, that the vt-ood of a growing tree is formed al the water that the tree takes from the soil, He planted 'a little •wi'llow tree that weighed five pounds in •a tub containitug two hundred poai ede of dry sail. At the end o'f five years, having added to the tub nothing ev- cept the water necessary to keep the tree growing, he pulled ,up the 'willow andfound that it weighed .one band - red and sixty -bine pounds. He dried the soil and found it 'weighed nearly the same as 'before, Therefore, in the course of 'five years, about one hun- dred and :sixty -'four pounds of 'wil'lo'w tree diad been produced from nothing else ,than water 1 What could be planter? W;hitt_'Van. I-Ielmo•nt did not knoiw is that the +leaves of a growing plant take carbon dioxide gas 'from the air, and that this is the source of all :the carbon' in the plant structure. IO;f !Ode one hundred and ,six'ty-dour 'pou'n'ds inoreaes, 'therefore, a _considerable part-'eaittefrom ,'the air, only a few ounces. ,from the soil, and the balance front The iwater, I Since Van .iHelntont's day agricul- ture has become a science, and a great deal is now known of the relation of the plant go the soil. In general it is much easier to ap- ply the results 'of scientific research in any of the manufacturing indus- tries than it is in agriculture. (Agricul- tural problems are usually much more complex. than manufacturing problems and involve a greater num- her of variables, not all of which •earn be controlled, 'Sunshine, wind and rain must be taken as they come and cannot be turned on or off at will. Soils are of endless variety and can- not be dealt with a s substances ,of definite composition. Moreover, an improvement itt agricultural proced- ure cannot ,become effective so quick- ly as an industrial improvement, since the decision to try the new method in the case of an industrial .process lies with only a few men, and those men usually of more than average in- telligence, whereas.. in agriculture there is no such centralization of control. One of the uses of :chemistry is to find out what things are made of, and chemistry has been of great service to agriculture. 41 Van Helmont had had at his command such a useful servant as modern chemistry, ihe. would .no doubt have analyzed his willow tree and 'found that it contain- ed naany pounds of carbon that did not carne front :water, since .water, as every high-school boy knows today, .contains only 'hydrogen an•d oxygen. ,Chemical ;analysis of a :growing plant reveals that besides the carbon, +hydrogen and oxygen that make up most of its weight there are present small amounts of several other ele- ments, such as iron, .magnesium, - sul- phur, nitrogen, potassium and,plos d hOrus. I'f• the plant is. ,burned, all of these .except a part 'af the nitrogen wid'1 be fautud. in the ash. The amount of ash, however, is relatively small. Van Hein -tont would.probably have paid !little atten'tio'n to. so small a quantity of material compared with the one hundred ape sixty - mine. Pounds of .willow tree. Out ,toclay we know 'better, for one of the most im- portant (lessons that 'modern chemis- try has tau'ght us is that the presence or absence of even a minute trace of some things makes a ,profound differ- ence in the •results, One 'of the most striking example, of the sort is dne't'in ,experintente on animal 'fcedinlg. We may, for example, take a healthy rat and feedhim cer- tain foods of apparently lti,gh nutri- tive value, which he devours with re- lish. Soon, however, hfr. IRat begins', 10 hose 'weight; his fair -coat loses its normal gloss; he is no' longer the ag- gressive ,fellow •that he once was, and presently he dies in the ,priule of the .allotted span of rat life: Now take a brother rat and feed 'hiss exactly the sante 'food but add to the daily ration very smallamounts of those -sub- stances knotvei as vitamines, and this rat will rethain in good health and in theltoritial course of events attain to a ripe old age and be full of fight to the end, Over and over again in the domain of chemistry, we meet analogous phe- 'n'omena, 1Prom the fact that plants have for countless ages •grown itt the soil it would appear that the ,essential min- eral plank foods are substances almost always present in soil — substances that must once have .been conetitn- eats of the original rocky surface of .the earth, That is trite of all the so- called -mineral plant foods: iron, mag- nesium, phosphorous, sulphur, and so forth—save only nitrogen. .And here we come upon some of the most in- teresting facts in the whole range of agricultural chemistry, The origin of the nitrogen naw its the earth and the earth's atmosphere is of course link- ed with the question of the origin of all the other material 01 which the earth is formed. But in those slow processes of iuorganio evolution which 'finally brought the •earth' into somewhat the .forst and condition that we knew today the nitrogen trust necessarily have accumulated in the atmosphere, The nitrogen was there- fore not a part of the original rocky surface of the earth, and the nitrogen compounds that are tow found in most soils must have been formed by subseguentl natural processes by w^high the••free nitrogen of the air' was ifixed as chemical compounds in the soil. If Incabeen found that the electric- al discharges, such as lightning, that occur in the air cause small amounts of free nitrogen to .form compounds with other elements in the air; these compounds are eventually brought down. in rain and scow, thus finding their way to the soli. ',But the amounts found in rain and snow are too small to account for the nitrogen supply Of the soil, in view of the amount re- moved annually, by crops. Plants as we ordinarily know them are incap- able of taking .from the air a single particle of the nitrogen that they must have to live and grow. There are however, certain exceedinly small plants that live in, the soil itself and have the remarkable power of cap- turing nitrogen from the air that per- meates the .soil. These minute plant; belong to a numerous family of living organisms known as bacteria and are so small that the individuals cannot be .seen. Only a few kinds of bacteria have the power to capture nitrogen. Aside ,front the small amounts of nit- rogen contpoautds 'formed in, the air by electrical means and carried down in rainor snow theseminute nitrogen - fixing ,balteria are responsible for all the fixed nitrogen found in the soil. (How does *tat concern us? Let the little bacteria fix nitrogen or not; we shall sow our crops and reap the har- vests in due season, and, if there are any bacteria in the soils of our rfields, they are welcome to do what they please with any nitrogen they may come upon, So we inay go our care- free way; but the truth is that our very existence depends Lentirely on what those little bacteria may choose to do with nitrogen in the soil. For note: nitrogen in chemically combin- ed forms is one of the.absolutely es- sential constituents of every plant and every animal and every human being in the world, Virtually all of this combined nitrogen must be ,first seiz- ed from the air by sail bacteria..Bac- teria form, therefore, a seemingly frail link in the chain of events that rend- ers life possible. Let them abandon their nitrogen -capturing ,habit and the nitrogen reserve of •hie soil would soon be depleted by those natural processes in which nitrogen is fore- ver 'escaping and returning to the air, 'When fields.are not cultivated and the plant crops ont removed front the land the 'mineral part of the plants is year by year returned to the soil when the plants decay. There is in- deed a continual exchange of nitrogen between the soil and the air, but there is more or Mess of a balance be- tween the gain and the loss The amounts •of .ph'osplroraus, potassium, itt iron, and so forth remain virtually canstan•t,!Let the soil be cul- tivated, however, and the crops re- moved fa-aln the land year by year and ,there is .produced an entirely different state of affairs. Every :crop carries with it various amounts of _mineral plant 'fo'ods fro -nkthe said, It 'therefore 'becomes important toconsiderthe :re serve of all .the mineral plant .foods contained in the soil. 'Fortunately, most agricultural soils contain an abundance 'orf ,all 'these minerals save three. Nitro'geta is the one most ' likely to be insufficiently supplied to plants by the soil and therefore is the limit- ing factor in crop ,production, Next to nitrogen 'shortage cones ,ph'os'phorus shortage, and finally potassiunt short- age; Rarely will a soil be found Short of ,anything else than ane or more of those three - nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. n 'There are two purposes to be ,sery ed itv applying .a fertilizer to the soil (Otte is to bring a soil that an'ay be deficient in one ,plant food, or mar than- one, into better condition ,fo crop production and thereby' to in crease the crop yield, The other is to replace in the soil as Bruch as pos- sible 01 the. plant 'foods removed by the crop end - thereby to -prevent the soil .from deteriorating,' 'Fundament- ally the problem is the same, namely to get the soil and the crop into pro- per relation to each other chemically I't tttust be remembered, however, that the whole matter .has as econo- mic side, and for that reason it may not be advisable in all 'cases to strive for the maximum crop yield ,from a given piece of land. It costs same - thing t0 apply fertilizer, and unless the return in the way. of increased crops is more than enough to pay for the fertilizer the 'farther obviously must be content with a lower yield, Under present agricultural condi- tions its this country there is another phase o'f the problem of using fertili- zers that should be given attention. 'Farmers are everywhere Boning diffi- culty in competing with industry for - labor. Fertilizers clearly are labor- saving in their effect, and there are doubtless many cases where the far- ther could advantageously use ferti'li- zero and farm a smaller number of acres for the same total crop secured. The whole agricultural situation per- haps indicates the necessity of apply- ing to agriculture the best results that have been 'von in the fields of science and economics. Unintelligent agriculture is doomed. ISince the factors of soil fertility have become better known the use of chemical fertilizers has 'become an in- creasingly common practice. These fertilizers are in no sense different from natural fertilizers, such as ani- mal manures. They are .merely man- ufactured substances that contain one or ,more of the three plant foods in which soils are most frequently de- ficient. Since plants must have their mineral food in soluble 'forst, these chemical ,fertilizers to be effective must contain plant foods that are sol- uble or will become soluble under :the conditions That obtain in the soil. The business of the fertilizer industry, therefore, is to assemble, process, compound and sell materials contain- ing at least one Of the elements nitro- gen, phosphorus and potassium in sol- uble form, 1Naturatly the cheapest sources of; these materials are sought, and search has led to every part of the 'globe. lAn English farmer may use a ,fertilizer containing nitrogen from the nitrate beds of Chile, phos- phorus ,from the phosphate deposits Of 'Flatida and potassium from the Ger- man potash mines. 'Or he may use a 'fertilizer in which the nitrogen• caste from !English by-product coke plants, phosphorus from Algeria and potash from the Alsatian mines, There are at present four sources ,from which nitrogen compounds are chiefly derived, For nearly 'half a century the statural nitrate deposits of Chile have supplied a large yearly tonnage of •situate 'for agriculture and for industry. Nitrogenous waste ma- terials such as cotton -seed meal, fish, scrap, dried blood and slaughter- house residues supply another' sub- stantial part of the total nitrogen used in agriculture. 'Nitrogen compounds are also recovered in the processes o8 making coke and coal gas, and finally nitrogen compounds are now prepar- ed in large amounts from the free nitrogen o,1 the air. Man• etas learned to do by somewhat laborious chemi= cal methods what the bacteria of the soil rho with apparent ease. !Since all these sources of nitrogen are available, and particularly since than 'has learned the trick of capturing atmospheric nitrogen. chemically, it night appear that we could now do. very well without the nitrogen -cap- turing bacteria of the soil. When we calculate the amount of nitrogen put into the soil by bacteria, however, and then compare this atnoaut•t with the :quantity of fertilizer used, +w'e are astonished" at. the :enormous amount captured by bacteria as compared with that added to the soil by man's efforts. 1I,1 the soil had to depend en- tirely on matt for its nitrogen, the ag- ricultural areas of''t.he parts of the world would presently become a de- sert The phosphorus co:mpotutds used in chemical 'fertilizers are Manufact- ured 'by treating ground phosphate rock with sulphuric acid, They are the cheapest of the plant ,foods artific- ially supplied, and mulch mare of them is used than of tlte others. Great de- posits of pho'sp'hate rock ocottr in many places cit the earth; the Florida deposits are the ones most exploited at present. (Potassium 'compounds 'for fertilizers conte almost entirely .from the potash mimes al 'Germany and Alsace. Dur- ing. the Great 'War,When it was itn- possible for most oS the world to get potash from those sources, strentto'tts. efforts were made to develop clones tic sources'of supply, 'Potassium cont - pounds were indeed ,recovered .,from sugar-relfinery !wastes, from cement and blast-furaace flare dusts, from kelp and fro'tn a num'b'er of saltydeposit fn .various places. lin ail the potas siunt produced amounted to nearly one fifth Of the normal peace -tine re gsiirem•enls, The ,cost of recovery wa high in all 'cases, however, and since these domestic pro- jeotswar most o't t cs st 1ro jeots have been abandoned. The 'Ger man and Alsatian mines are again supplying most of the detnaitd. The production of nitrogen of ni trogett compounds from the 'free mi- trogen.of the air by Chemical means is a particularly important develop Ment 'of recent years. 'Neither potas- sium nor phosphorus, the other im- portant ,fertilizer elements, plays such a varied role. Of the total of potas- sium salts ruined more than ninety per cent ,hinds use in agriculture; and more than ninety-nine per cent of alt the phosphate rock mined goes into 'fertilizers..I3u't nitrogen compounds are used in large quantities in ,manu- facturing such articles as dyes, glass, sulphuric acid, nitric acid and blast- ing powders. In normal times about one third' of all the nitrate is used in. industries. War diverts anuclt more of the nitrogen from agriculture and turns it into use ,for rnautt.facturing military explosives. 'Because nitrogen is so indispensable in time of w•ar every nation has:sottght to become as self-sustaining as possible its the nat- ter of the supply of nitrogen. The de- velopment of the chemical method of capturing nitrogen 'front the air has now made that possible, and as .a con- sequence we find nearly every coun- try engaged in setting up nitrogen - fixing plants, which in peace theles can tui`•tt out nitrogen fertilizer and in war can 'be turned to defense of the country. HISTORIC HIGH PARK "On the morning of the 25th — Christutas day—shot a deer and some quail at the rear part of High Park, near Bloor street," That was in 1037. Young John 'Ho- ward was tasting the lfirst fruits of success. Perhaps he parsed on a hill to enjoy a glow of satisfaction as he looked over broad acres of rolling timberland. This was his land, 1165 acres of it, won by his colt efforts in a new country, (Behind +hint, down overlooking the lake, was the house he had built—a fine house, There, his wife,jetninta,-w'ho had endured with hint the hardships of the struggle that had become a memory, was preparing. their first Christmas dinner in their new hone. Away to the east was 'York, where iaew buildings planned by John How- ard were being erected vndfr his guidance every day. Young Jolts'. (Howard was entitled to his feeling of satisfaction—the sat- isfaction expressed so clearly in his brief diary entry. And to -day, thanks to John ,How- ard, Toronto is able to enjoy the same satisfaction. Toronto enjoys the satis- faction of possession of the rolling acres and the fine house, a gift to the city ;by the young huntsman of 3.00 years ago that is now 'worth $2,700,000 'It is ,hard to -day to understand why the City Cortncil of 1118713 ruminated six weeks before accepting John (Ho- ward's offer of High and Colborne .Tood•ge as a gift to the city of Toronto. (John 'Howard purchased the prop- erty in '1036 for .500' pounds and call- ed it High Park "because," be wrote, "of its great height in situation." In the sante year he built the house 'which he .called Colborne Lodge, af- ter 'his first benefactor in this coun- try: Sir John Colborne, When advancing years led Mr. Howard and his wife, who were child- less, to consider what was to become of the 'name they had created, they decided to offer it to the city "so that we may be identified with Toronto forever, The terms on whichhe made the offer were that the city should pay ,an annuity of $11200 o!n• his life and that of Mrs. Howard; that the prop- erty •shou'ldremain his for three years, after which time the city would assume ownership of atl'tbut 'Colborne :Lodge and 45 'acres surrounding it. On the death of 1•Ir. Howard the house and 415 acres were to become the p.r:operty of the city. The final condition was that the small nook where a stone cairn now stories the grace of John RIow•itrcl and his wife was to be kept in order bg the •Cor poral 1'[r.alt, ;Ilow•arcl himself estimated the 'value of his estate at that time thus— Colborne 1Lodge and 40 ,acres of orn- anaetttal graunds, $8,1000, farmhouse and outbuildings, $6,1000, 675 acres in 18 :fields, fenced and with;, a road tern - piked to Blear street, $1110,000; total, $2b1000.. IPayotents of annuities to .which the city agreed in all amounted to $119,.500, It .was that figure which made the Gity; Council of 118i70 pause to ru- minate, •- To -day land adjacent to the park is worth more than $1110 a foot and one hundred feet on each side of High. !Park' avenue running north front 1131am. street is ,worth snore than the entire '11185 acres in 18'73. The sante year that the Howard Here and There. S. S. Empress of Tapan'arrived at Victoria recently with one of the largest passenger lists in the past three years. There was a total of 577 from the Gkient and Honolulu. The 'liner was also heavily booked for the westbound trip from Vancouver and Victo- ria. Speaking at Toronto recently before members of the Interna- tional Building Owners and Managers Association, E. W. Beatty, K.C„ chairman and presi- dent of the Canadian Pacific Railway,doubted the wisdom of "too elaborate planning" in na- tional economics. Mr. Beatty did not think the present system of society was wrong except in the "way in which it is applied." The Canadian Pacific Railway will celebrate the fiftieth anni- versary of the completion of its transcontinental line next year. It was November 7, 1885 that Donald A. 'Smith, later Lord Strathcona, drove the last spike at Craigellachie joining east to west and Atlantic to Pacific. Hon. Charles A. Dunning, vice- president and general manager of the Seigniory Club, Monte- bello, Quebec, has been elected a director of Barclay's Bank, Can- ada. The former Federal Min- ister. of Pinapce is also president of the Ontario Equitable Life In- surance Company. After one .of the most remark- able and successful meetings ever held by a religious body, the Ox- ford Group left the Banff Springs Hotel for the East. Many of them sailed from Quebec by S.S. Empress of Australia for Eng- land. The next house party will be held at Oxford July 1-14. Speaking at the Admiral. Beatty Hotel, Saint John, Sir William Clark, British Blgh Commissioner to Canada, claimed that the real source of Canada's troubles in connection with marketing agri- cultural produoe lay in the un- economic expansion of agricul- tural production by industrial countries, especially some of the larger European countries which are normally importers. Music, moonlight, gloriou.s lake breezes with 600 miles of sailing on the Canadian Pacific's Great Lakes ships Assiniboine, Keewa- tin and Manitoba are at the dis- posal of passengers on the com- pany's lines this summer at low cost. . Tho offer promises to be very alluring to Canadians and visitors to the Dominion as well. Quebec Province is alive with fetes, celebrations and gala events this year marking the anniversaries of some "of the most memorable events in its history. . Among them and the most important is the 400th an- niversary of the discovery of Can- ada by Jacques Cartier in July 1634. A Mediterranean - Africa - South America cruise in the 22,000 -ton. liner Empress of Australia, visit- ing 24 ports in the Mediterranean, Palestine, Egypt, East and South Africa, South ,America and the West Indies will be operated next winter, it is announced by the Canadian Pacific, The cruise will take 96 days, leaving New York January 18, 1935 and returning there April 24. estate passed into the city's hands, the corporation, realizing the worth of a huge park, added 1170 acres north. end west of High Park, which they purchased from the !Ridout Estate for $110000. The total area of the park 't0- day is just over 400 acres. - 1B'ut far more pleasant than consi.i- eratiott of the dollar worth of High Park to -day, is the contetttplation of of the beauties and historic treasures of this well-nigh century -old home :;f one of \tally York's leading citizens. For all that it may be a pudic park, and despite the addition of asphalt pavements and ice creast pavilions, 11 remains for those- with eyes to see, the private..,gstate of a tall- pictur- esque, white -bearded . man idose cloaked and tall -hatted figure strode about ordering roads to be "ruts: - piked" here and ifie'Ids to be sown with wheat there. Year by year the city hes made im- provements and additions, ,But the es- sential 'atmosphere remains, The rocicy glens, the woodland glades, long vistas d'o'wn timbered hillsides, all those natural beauties which filled the heart of John Howard with pleas- ure remain for whoever may, seek' them, And to capture the final and com- plete feeling of existence in an older day, it is only -necessary to climb the winding gravel path to a high spur of land where its row- of 'French wind- ows o•verloo'ki'ttg the lake, stands the sturdy n'oughcast (rouse to which John IHloward brought his '.rife a few clays before 'Christmas 'morning in .11837, After '110' Years of 'As'thtna Dr. J. D. Kellogg's Asthma -Remedy proved • the only relief for one grateful user, and this is .bat one case among many. Little wonder that it ,has. now be- come the one recognized' remedy 0n the .market. ID: has earned its fame by its ,never .failing effecti,vettess. ,f:t is earning it to -day, as it has done f•e,r years. '11 is the greatest asthma specific within reach al suffering humanity.