A manual of the electro-chemical treatment of seeds

aPERT^mmLiPMii

COfflELLMMWCRilTT

I CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

p

924 081 040 010

Cornell University
Library

The original of tiiis book is in
tine Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924081040010

Production Note
Cornell University Library produced this
volume to replace the irreparably
deteriorated original. It was scanned using
Xerox software and equipment at 600 dots per
inch resolution and compressed prior to
storage using CCITT Group 4 compression. The
digital data were used to create Cornell's
replacement volume on paper that meets the
ANSI ■ Standard Z39. 48-1984. The production of
this volume was supported by the National
Endowment for the Humanities. Digital file
copyright by Cornell University Library
1995.

Scanned as part of the A. R. Mann Library
project to preserve and enhance access to
the Core Historical Literature of the
Agricultural Sciences. Titles included in
this collection are listed in the volumes
published by the Cornell University Press in
the series THE LITERATURE OF THE
AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES, 1991-1995, Wallace C.
Olsen, series editor.

Hem ^ork

^>Utt (ftoUegs nf Agriculture

J^t (Catnell UniUEraitH

ffitbrarg

A MANUAL OF THE
ELECTRO-CHEMICAL
TREATMENT OF SEEDS

A MANUAL OF THE
ELECTRO-CHEMICAL
TREATMENT OF SEEDS

BY

CHARLES MERCIER, M.D.

F.R.C.P., Etc.

"He gave it for his opiaion that whoever could make two
ears of com, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot
of ground where only one grew before, would deserve
better of mankind, and do more essential service to his
country, than the whole race of politicians put together."
A Voyage to Brobdi7ignag.

LONDON
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON PRESS, LTD.

i8 WARWICK SQUARE, E.C.4
1919

PREFACE

When I first heard, about a year ago, of the
electrification of seeds, and was told that it
produced an increase in the crop grown from
seed so treated, I naturally put the statement
down as moonshine. My information came,
however, from persons of standing and ex-
perience in the world of agriculture, who
had, as far as I knew, no axe to grind, and
were evidently convinced of the truth of
their belief ; and it seemed worth while,
therefore, to investigate the evidence in
order to undeceive them, for the thing was
on the face of it incredible.

Fortunately, no knowledge of agriculture
was needed. All that was necessary was
ability to investigate evidence in a proper
critical spirit — and the critical spirit was
certainly not wanting. But soon a wonder

vi ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

came to light. The further I carried my
investigations, the more difficult I found it
to maintain my sceptical attitude. At length,
being in danger of a conversion parallel with
that of Balaam the son of Beor, and mistrust-
ing my own judgment, I induced several
parties of experienced agriculturists, occupy-
ing responsible positions, to visit the fields
at harvest-time and form their own opinions.
These gentlemen, experts appointed by foreign
governments, agricultural correspondents of
influential newspapers, landowners cultivat-
ing thousands of acres of their own land,
and so forth, accordingly visited the farms,
and examined the crops growing from
treated and untreated seed side by side. In
not one case was the opinion adverse to the
process. In nearly every case it was very
favourable, and in some it was enthusiastic.

After this, I was obliged to revise my
attitude ; and having regard to the serious
shortage of food that threatened, and still
threatens, not this country only, but the
whole world, I determined to spread the

PREFACE vii

knowledge of the process as widely as I
possibly could.

It was true that the process was patented,
and that I was not financially interested in
it ; but I did not see that the financial benefit
that my efforts might bring to the inventor
was any reason why the country should not
reap full benefit from the invention. If
the labourer is worthy of his hire, surely
the inventor is worthy of his reward. Seven
years of strenuous work and the expenditure
of thousands of pounds may surely look
for some reward without being considered
sordid.

CHAS. MERCIER.

CONTENTS

CHAP.

PACE

I. HISTORY ....

I

2. THE PROCESS .

22

3. RESULTS ....

39

4. FAILURES.

74

5. DISADVANTAGES

92

6. HORTICULTURAL SEEDS

99

7. THE EXPLANATION .

107

A MANUAL OF THE
ELECTRO -CHEMICAL
TREATMENT OF SEEDS

CHAPTER 1

HISTORY

The application of electro-chemistry to
agriculture and horticulture is quite new.
The application of electricity to plants for
the purpose of stimulating their growth is
indeed of long standing. Forty years ago
Sir William Siemens applied electricity to
growing crops, and was followed by the
Berthelgts, father and son, who conducted
long series of experiments. Later still,
other physicists took up the matter, and
of late years it has even attracted the
attention of the Board of Agriculture, in
whose journal records of experiments have

ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

appeared from time to time since 19 lo. It
is important to keep in mind the difference
between the application of electricity alone
to growing crops and the application of an
electro-chemical process to seed before it is
sown. The distinction is clear enough, but
the two processes are constantly confused,
and the electro-chemical process is supposed
to be the same as the electric process, or a
mere unimportant variation of it.

In- the electric process, no application of
electricity is made to the seed before germin-
ation takes place. In the electro-chemical
process, the sole application of electricity
is made to the ungerminated seed. In the
electric process, chemicals are not used :
electricity alone is applied to the crop. In
the electro - chemical process, the seed is
steeped in a solution of some metallic salt,
and the passage of the electricity through
the solution drives the ions of the salt into
the seed. The process is not solely electri-
cal, but is electro-chemical, inasmuch as it
utilises electricity to produce a chemical

fercier^ s Electrification of Seeds,

t ■

HISTORY

result, though it must be understood that
this is not the whole result. In the electric
process, the electricity is not applied until
the plant has appeared above ground, and
is then applied more or less continuously
throughout the whole period of growth
of the plant. It is discontinued at night,
and in rainy weather, but is applied daily,
as far as weather will permit, from the time
of appearance of the plant above ground
until harvest. In the electro-chemical pro-
cess, the electricity is applied to the seed
once for all, before it is even sown. It
is passed through the seed alone for a few
hours, and then the operation is at an end.
In the electric process, posts are set up on
the ground on which the crop is grown,
wires are carried from post to post, and
electricity must be brought into the farmer's
fields. In the electro-chemical process, the
farmer's fields are not invaded. The ap-
paratus may be miles away ; the farmer has
nothing to do with the matter except to
send his seed to the electrifying station ;

4 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

and after he has received it back, again, all
his farming operations proceed in the usual
manner. A project is now on foot for
sending a travelling apparatus round to the
farms, so that even the necessity of sending
away the seed to be treated will be abolished.
From what has been said it will be seen
that the two processes are entirely different,
having nothing whatever in common but
the use of electricity — and even this is used
at a very different amperage and voltage.

The application of electricity to grow-
ing crops has been tried experimentally by
various experimenters for at least forty years.
The application of an electro-chemical pro-
cess to seeds is quite new. Until Mr Fry
began his experiments about seven years ago,
it does not appear that any attempt had been
made to apply such a process to seeds, or to
use any electrolytic process in agriculture or
horticulture.

The inventor of the Wolfryn electro-
chemical process had been for many years
interested in electricity, and had directed his

-u

Paris and London Photo
Mr Hill's Works at Poole for electrification of seeds — Exterior.

6 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

attention to the production of high-tension
electricity by means of steam, turning to
practical use a discovery of Faraday's that
had lain neglected ever since his experi-
ments revealed the possibility. Mr Fry
designed an apparatus by which he w^as
able to produce at very small cost oscillating
currents of enormous tension, up to as high
as 100,000 volts. The apparatus was so
successful and so cheap that it afforded
means of equipping every tramp steamer
with a wireless apparatus, and in fact was
used successfully on an experimental scale
by one of the steamers of the Great
Western Railway Company plying between
Weymouth and the Channel Isles. The
Admiralty sent down members of its wire-
less department to investigate the matter,
and successful trials were made. When
this point was reached, however, and a great
future appeared to be opened out for the
application of the invention, it was found
impossible to use it without employing
transmitters and receivers that were already

HISTORY

protected by Marconi's patents, and it was
necessary to abandon the project, at any rate
until these patents had lapsed.

It was then suggested to Mr Fry that he
should turn his attention to the application
of electricity produced by steam to growing
crops. He knew of what had been done in
this direction, and on mature consideration
he arrived at the conclusion that, however
experimentally successful the application of
high-tension currents to growing crops might
be, the expense of the application was such
that it could not be made economically bene-
ficial, and he made no attempt to pursue this
matter. But his mind having been directed
to the application of electricity to agri-
culture, it occurred to him to try its effect
upon seed. If, as appeared to be established,
electricity exerted a beneficial effect upon
the growth of plants in their maturer stages,
it was possible, and even probable, that it
might stimulate the germination of seeds
also. This was a fairly obvious inference ;
but it was a much longer step, and one that

8 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

few would have thought of making, to con-
jecture that the electrification of seed before
it is sown might produce such a change in
the seed as to cause it to germinate earlier
when subsequently sown, and to produce a
more healthy, vigorous, and fertile plant.
This was a totally new conception. There
were no known facts either in support of it
or in conflict with it, and the only thing to
be done was to follow the maxim of John
Hunter — Don't think : try.

Here, however, occurred the first difficulty.
If currents of high tension, such as the in-
ventor had been experimenting with, were
passed into the grain, the apparatus required
would be very expensive and complicated
and would need an expert to work it. It
would be desirable, therefore, to use ordinary
low-tension electricity. But ordinary low-
tension electricity would not have the pene-
trating power of high-tension electricity,
and would not be able to penetrate the seed
without the aid of a conducting medium.
Such a medium would be furnished by a

Murder's Electrification of Seeds.

Pitrh and London J'/ioto Agency,

Oats grown by Mr Legg, Blashenwell Farm, Corfe Castle. Electrified on the
left, unelectrified on the right. The number of straws in each bundle is
the same. Note the much stouter straw grown from electrified seed, the
longer panicles, and the much more numerous spikelets on each panicle.

HISTORY

solution of some metallic salt, and hence the
advisability of steeping the seed in such a
solution, and of passing the electricity through
the seed while it is immersed. The current
would of course have an electrolytic effect
on the solution, would decompose it and
drive its ions into the seed immersed in it.
Hence the process would no longer be a
purely electrickl process : it would become
in part a chemical process ; it would be
electro -chemical. And thus the electro-
chemical treatment of seeds originated.

If a solution of a salt must be used, it
was natural to choose first those that are used
for the purpose of chemical manures, the
most soluble of which are sulphate of am-
monia and nitrate of soda, and these are also
fairly abundant and fairly cheap. Nitrate
of soda was first used. Wheat was steeped
in a solution of the salt, electricity of low
tension was passed through it for a good
many hours, and then the wheat was sown
in large pots, at the same time with un-
treated wheat in other pots, filled with

lo ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

similar soil, for control, and the two were
placed side by side in the open air for com-
parison. The result was awaited with a
good deal of curiosity ; and when it was
found that in all the pots of treated wheat
the seeds germinated earlier than in the
control pots, it appeared that the treatment
had produced some effect ; and this impres-
sion was confirmed later on, when the plants
from the treated seed grew stronger, taller,
and produced better ears and more of them.
Here was a beginning that encouraged further
investigation. It seemed to show that the
process was worth following up. It held out
hopes of good results to be obtained in time.
In the following season more numerous
trials were made. Oats and barley were
added to the seeds experimented on. Larger
quantities were treated. Solutions of several
different salts were employed, and in each
solution different lots of seeds were treated
for different lengths of time. The quantities
treated were now too large to be sown in
pots, and a piece of arable land was set

HISTORY 1 1

aside and marked out into plots, on each of
which a sample of the electro-chemically
treated corn was sown, a neighbouring plot
being in every case sown with untreated
seed of the same sample at the same time,
for comparison and control. Again when
harvest time came round the results were
decidedly encouraging : the electrified seed
gave better crops than the controls. But
the results were not uniform. Some of the
plots showed better results than others, and
reference to the records afforded an indica-
tion as to what length of treatment, what
strength of current, what kind of solution,
and so forth, afforded the best result.

It is evident that the permutations and
combinations of these several factors are
very numerous ; and as the three kinds of
seed, wheat, oats, and barley, were experi-
mented on, the number of experiments was
trebled. In each solution, and in each separ-
ate strength of solution, different samples of
each seed were treated for half an hour, for
an hour, for an hour and a half, for two

12 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

hours, and so on, and with different strengths
of current. The several samples were then
sown, always with a control plot sown at
the same time, and the results awaited. The
method was very tedious, since only one
crop could be raised in each season, and
there was no previous experience, there were
no former experiments of the same kind,
to take for guidance : the inventor was
obliged to begin at the very beginning.

Little by little the conditions were nar-
rowed down. Little by little the proper
treatment began to emerge ; and the first
conclusions were rather surprising. .It was
found that, although the seeds of wheat,
oats, and barley are so much alike in size,
shape, consistency, and in all belonging to
the same natural order of Gramines, yet
they did not respond to the treatment in the
same way. In order to secure the best
result in barley, it had to be treated for
twice as long as oats, which it so closely
resembles. It was found that the constitu-
tion of the electrodes made a material dif-

Mercier's Electrification of Seeds.

Paris and London Photo As'^ncy.

Oats grown by Mr R. S. Hunt, in the same field at Poundbur}'
Farm, Dorchester. The electrified (on the left) were sown
a fortnight after the unelectrified (on the right). The same
number of straws in each bundle.

HISTORY 13

ference, iron electrodes producing a better
effect than carbon. It was found that com-
mon salt made a very good medium, though
not the best, to steep the grain in ; and it
was found that seed treated in solution of
one salt was better adapted to one kind of
soil, and produced a better crop when sown
therein than the same seed when treated in
a solution of a different salt ; while with
other soils the success was reversed. Evi-
dently the affair was becoming extremely
complicated. Hundreds of experiments
were made every season, and the total
number is now very large ; but still, even
for the three staple cereals there is yet
much to be discovered, and the investigation
of the proper treatment of horticultural seeds
is scarcely more than begun. Enough has
been done with them to show that when
full investigations have been made, and the
proper treatm'ent for each seed determined,
results as good as those already obtained with
cereals may be confidently expected. But up
to the present the main efforts of the inventor

14 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

have been concentrated upon determining
with accuracy the best treatment for cereals;
and when it is borne in mind how many
factors are to be determined, and that the
right combination of all these factors must
be separately determined for each kind of
seed in each kind of soil, the wonder is, not
that so little has been determined for horti-
cultural seeds, but that so much has been
determined with respect to cereals.

Even for cereals much remains to be
done. There are something like 150 dif-
ferent kinds of wheat in cultivation, and it
is quite probable that, although every kind
of wheat yields superior crops when treated
in the manner ascertained as appropriate for
wheat in general, yet each kind would yield
better results still if it received a special
treatment peculiarly suited to its own
peculiar constitution. It will be seen, there-
fore, that the investigation is practically
endless, and that many years must elapse
before the treatment that is perfectly ap-
propriate to all the common garden seeds is

HISTORY 15

known. On the other hand, it must be
remembered that all that has been achieved
at present has been achieved by the efforts
of but a single investigator, working at first
in the dark, and doing everything, from the
preparation of the soil to the sowing and
harvesting of the seed, for himself. From
his numerous experiments principles are
beginning to emerge into view. It is be-
ginning to be possible to say, " Seed of this
kind will take about so long to treat ; such
and such a combination of salts will be
found, if not the best, yet somewhere near
the best " ; and so forth. As these principles
become more clearly and firmly established,
the time occupied in investigating the treat-
ment of any particular kind of seed will be
shortened ; and when many investigators
are employed in a college with a proper
staff of subordinates to undertake the routine
duties, investigation will proceed faster still.
But it is not possible at present to look
forward to a time when such a staff will
come to the end of its labours.

1 6 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

The kinds of seeds used in agriculture
alone are numerous, and those used in horti-
culture are perhaps twenty, perhaps fifty
times as numerous ; and of all these, only
three, the staple cereals grown in this
country, have been sufficiently tested to
warrant the commercial use of the process
upon them. There are other cereals, such
as rye, millet, sesame, rice, etc., whose
treatment is not yet determined, and the
determination of the treatment of even the
commonest of horticultural seeds is scarcely
yet begun.

It is scarcely begun, and for none of these
seeds has the correct mode of treatment been
fully ascertained. But something has been
done ; some trials have been made, and for
some of these seeds the trials have been
fairly extensive, and up to the present no
seed has been found that has not benefited
by electrification. Applications have been
made from distant parts of the world for
trials to be made upon rice, sugar-cane,
cotton, flax, and other seed ; and though, as

HISTORY 17

has been said, the application of the process
to these seeds has not been worked out in
detail, yet up to the present no kind of seed
has been found that does not respond to
the treatment by producing a more vigorous
plant, richer and superior in quality in some
respect for which it is cultivated. This
is especially true of cotton, tobacco, root
crops such as mangels, turnips, and swedes,
cabbages, tomatoes, and some others. All
these crops are grown as annuals, and are
harvested within a twelvemonth after they
are sown ; and it is probable that for such
crops the process will be found more bene-
ficial than for crops that do not come to
maturity until after a longer interval from
sowing time, such as orchids, pepin fruits
(apples and pears), citron fruits (oranges,
lemons, and citrons), bush fruits (raspberries,
gooseberries, currants), brambles (black-
berries, logan-berries, wine-berries), and
other cultivated crops. We do not yet
know whether these crops of a longer
maturation period will be benefited by the

1 8 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

process, but all of them are occasionally
grown from seed for the production of new
varieties, and at present the process is a very
tedious one, for years elapse before the plant
grown from hybridised seed reaches the
fruiting stage, so that the qualities of its
fruit can be estimated. If, as may fairly be
anticipated, this period of waiting can be
shortened by a season or two, it is evident
that the commercial advantage will be
considerable.

It has been said above that crops grown
from seed that has been treated by the
electro-chemical process are superior both in
quantity and quality to those grown from
untreated seed of the same sample. The
quality of corn is estimated by its weight,
and a small difference in the weight of a
bushel indicates a considerable difference in
the quality of the corn. A poor sample of
wheat weighs 60 lbs. per bushel, an average
sample 62 or 63 lbs. per bushel, a fine sample
64 lbs. per bushel, and 65 lbs. per bushel
is an extraordinarily fine sample, such as is

Merciers Electrification of Seeds.

Paris and London Photo Agency.

Oats grown by Mr Roseveare, Gains Cross Farm, Blandford. Electrified
on the left, unelectrified on the right. The same number of straws in
each bundle. The straw from the electrified seed is stouter and longer,
the panicles larger, and the spikelets more numerous.

HISTORY 19

seen only in exceptional seasons. Now, the
increase in weight observed in wheat grown
from electrified seed varies from i to 4 lbs.
per bushel. It is evident, therefore, that
the use of the process not only increases the
bulk of the crop, but also so improves its
quality that it may command a higher price
per bushel, yield more flour and less ofFal,
and that wheat that would otherwise be fit
for milling purposes alone may become fit
for seed.

This is a sample of the improvement in
quality, but it is only a sample. Cotton
grown from electrified seed produces a
longer staple, and length of staple is one
of the most important qualities of cotton.
On the other hand, tobacco grown from
electrified seed produces immense leaves
that are not always of as good a quality
as the smaller leaves grown from unelectri-
fied seed.

It is not only true seeds that yield better
crops when electrified. Potatoes also yield
a more abundant crop when the " seed "

20 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

potatoes have been subjected to the process
before they are set in the ground, and
experiments are now being made with
bulbs. Though the increase in the crop
of potatoes has been very pronounced, it
has not been constant. Sometimes the crop
produced from electrified potatoes has shown
a diminution, showing that in these cases
the process had not been properly performed
and that the true conditions required by
potatoes had not been observed. The same
untoward result was occasionally produced
in the early experiments on cereals, before
the best conditions had been ascertained ;
and there is no reason to doubt that as
soon as the best conditions for electrifying
potatoes have been ascertained, success in
increasing the crop will be as uniformly
secured with potatoes as it already is with
cereals. For the moment, however — that
is, until another season has passed and pro-
vided its experience, — the expectation with
respect to increase in the crop of potatoes
can be looked on only as extremely promis-

Merciers Electrification of Seeds,

HISTORY 2 1

ing, not as assured. The inventor will,
however, welcome the trial of experimental
plots of electrified potatoes, provided always
that unelectrified seed potatoes of the same
sample are planted at the same time, in the
same field, and under the same conditions,
so that a fair comparison can be made.

CHAPTER II

THE PROCESS

The nature of the process has already been
sketched. It is the passage of a weak
current of electricity for a certain length of
time through the seed, the duration of the
treatment varying with the kind of seed
treated. As a weak current of electricity
will not pass through dry seed, the seed
must be steeped in water ; and as a weak
current will not pass readily through tap
water, some salt must be dissolved in the
water to render it conductive. Any salt
will render the water a conductor, but not
every salt produces the same effect upon
the seed. The salts most readily procured
are common salt and chloride of calcium,
and with these the majority of the experi-

24 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

ments have been made and the whole of
the farmers' seed has been treated. Other
salts have been tried, and remarkable effects
have followed ; but most of the experiments
have been conducted during the war, and
the war has made some salts too expensive for
use upon a large scale, and has made others
altogether unprocurable. Hence common
salt (chloride of sodium) and chloride of
calcium have been the salts used. The
solutions have been used at a strength of
from 2 J to 5 per cent., the solid being taken
by weight and the liquid by "measure, so
that I oz. of salt is used for each pint of water,
^ lb. for each gallon. The quantity of the
solution required is 5 gallons or more per
bushel of seed, so that a charge of 50 sacks of
seed would require 1000 gallons of solution.
In practice, the solution and the seed are
best contained in an oblong shallow tank,
which may be of wood, or concrete, or
brick faced with cement. In any case, the
internal angles should be rounded, to facili-
tate the removal of every grain of seed when

Aferczer's Electrification of Seeds »

Paris and London Photo Agency.

Oats from the same field. Electrified on the left, unelectrified
on the right. The same number of straws in each bundle.
The difference is conspicuous.

THE PROCESS 25

the operation is over, and the floor should
slope from all directions to a drain, the
aperture of which must be closed by a wire
grid, to prevent the escape of the seed when
the liquor is drawn off by opening a valve
in the course of the drain.

A tank of the inside measurement of 6 ft.
6 in. X 3 ft. X 2 ft. deep will treat 4 sacks at
one charge. A tank 8 ft. x 4 ft. x 2 ft. 6 in.
deep will take a charge of 10 sacks. A tank
10 ft. X 5 ft. X 3 ft. will take a charge of 20
sacks ; and so on. As a matter of practical
convenience it is found better to have several
small tanks than one large one.

Each end of the tank is completely faced
on the inside with an iron plate ^ inch
thick, which serves as an electrode, and to
these plates the wires conveying the elec-
tricity are attached.

The source of the electricity may be a
dynamo installed for the purpose, or it
may be a town supply. In either case a
switchboard is necessary, with a rheostat
for regulating the current. The quantity

26 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

of electricity employed for most seeds is
about 8 watts per gallon of fluid used. A
good working rule is to allow 2 amperes
per square foot of acting surface of one
electrode. The tanks may be ranged in series
or in parallel, as may be most convenient.

After the seed has received its proper
quantum of current, which varies much
according to the kind under treatment, the
liquor is run off and the seed is taken out
and conveyed to the drying apparatus.

Wet seed cannot be sown. It sticks
together, and if an attempt is made to sow
it broadcast it falls in lumps instead of in
separate grains, and for the same reason it
will not pass through the drills. Even if
not wet, but only damp — though the seed
may be sown if not very damp, — it is swollen,
will not pass through the drills at all unless
they are suitably adjusted, and even then
will not pass regularly and equally. More-
over, a farmer must sow his seed, not when
he would, but when he can — that is to say,
when he has produced a good seed-bed, and

28 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

when the weather is favourable. It is rare,
therefore, for a farmer to be able to sow his
seed the day that he receives it, and if it is
kept in a damp state it may heat, so that its
germinating power is destroyed ; or it may
sprout, and become unsowable ; or, if neither
of these accidents happens, it is sure to become
mildewed, and thereby injured. For all these
reasons it is necessary to dry the seed.

But there is another cogent reason. It
is well known to practical farmers that the
drying of damp seed equalises and stimulates
its germination, and the crop is shghtly
improved if the seed is merely soaked and
then dried. The crop is still further im-
proved if the seed is dried after being
soaked in certain chemical solutions ; and
the improvement has been occasionally such
that the inventor of the electro-chemical
process has taken out a patent for the process
of soaking in chemicals and drying. But
this was done chiefly as a safeguard, for
the resulting improvement is never so great
as is obtained by the additional process

Mercier's Electrification of Seeds.

Paris and London Photo Agency.

Barley grown by Mr Roseveare, Gains Cross Farm, Blandford. Elec-
trified on the left, unelectrified on the right. Note the longer and
thicker straw, and the much longer and plumper ears of the
electrified grain.

THE PROCESS 29

of electrification, and when once the seed
is in the salted liquor, and the necessary
expense of subsequent drying has been in-
curred, it adds little to the trouble or the
expense to pass a current of electricity
through the seed, and thus gain the maxi-
mum of benefit.

The seed must be dried, and the drying
is very important. If the seed is not
sufficiently dried, it not only loses the
benefit that is derived, as has just been
mentioned, from being dried, but it may
become mildewed or mouldy or otherwise
damaged. On the other hand, if it is dried
too much it may be killed outright. Every
organised structure, every part of an animal
or vegetable body, contains a certain share
of moisture, and if deprived of this moisture
it dies. Seed corn contains naturally from
II to 14 per cent, of moisture, and if it is
deprived of this residual moisture it dies.
It is important, therefore, that the seed
should not be over-dried.

The method usually employed for the

30 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

drying of various substances is the applica-
tion of heat, and it is usually supposed that
the application of heat is sufficient by itself
to extract or drive the moisture out of the
heated substance ; and many commercial
appliances for drying are constructed on the
principle that heating is sufficient for drying.
This is a mistake, and is in some appliances
a very costly mistake. Heat is a useful
assistant and adjuvant to drying, but heat
by itself is totally useless.

If we fill a vessel with water and then
close the vessel air-tight, so that nothing
can escape, it is manifest that we may heat
it to any degree we please and the water
will not escape so long as the vessel is strong
enough to withstand the pressure. Or if,
instead of water, we fill the vessel with wet
clothes or wet corn or any other wet sub-
stance, the same is true. ' If we heat the
vessel, the wet clothes or the wet corn will
be heated, but will not be dried. They will
not be dried, for the moisture cannot escape,
and when the vessel is opened, the only

THE PROCESS 31

difference will be that the clothes or the
corn, instead of being cold and wet, will be
hot and wet. They will still be as wet
as ever.

On the other hand, everyone knows the
drying effect of a March wind. A peck of
March dust is worth a king's ransom, and
fortunately there is usually much dust in
March, and dust is dry — very dry. How
is it that this soil which was moist, un-
pleasant mud yesterday is dry dust to-day ?
It has not been heated. March wind is not
hot : it is very cold — nothing makes one
shiver as March wind does. But yet it is
a most powerful drier. Why ? Manifestly
because, though it is not hot, it is dry.

If a thing is wet — that is to say, if it
has moisture adhering to its surface — this
moisture may be removed by wiping, or by
blotting, or by centrifugalising, or by evapora-
tion ; but if the substance is damp — if, that is
to say, the moisture is not in the surface but
inherent in the texture of the substance — then
this moisture can be removed by evaporation

32 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

into the air and in no other way. The

moisture in the substance is under tension —

that is to say, its particles are in movement,

and in the course of this movement they are

constantly coming to the surface and tending

to fly off. Whether or not they will fly off

depends entirely upon whether there is room

for them in the adjacent air. Air can hold

a great deal of water vapour, but cannot

hold an indefinitely large quantity ; and

when it is full, it can hold no more. If we

put a moist substance into air that is saturated

with moisture, the substance will not dry ;

but if the air is not saturated, it will take

up moisture until it becomes saturated ; and

the drier it is, the more rapidly it will take

up moisture, and the more rapidly a moist

substance placed in it will become dry.

But, of course, as the moisture escapes from

the substance into the air, the air becomes

more and more charged with moisture, takes

up the water from the substance more and

more slowly, until at length it becomes

saturated and will hold no more. Then

34 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

drying ceases. If we wish the drying process
to continue, we must either substitute a new
portion of dry air, or we must extract the
moisture from the air to enable it to take
up more. Both methods are effectual in
practice. In practice it is found that a
current of air — that is to say, the constant
renewal of the moist air — dries a substance
much more rapidly than stagnant air ; and
in practice it is found that even stagnant air
will dry a substance completely if we furnish
the air with some hygroscopic substance,
such as chloride of zinc, or sulphuric acid,
which will extract the moisture from the
air as fast as it enters the air.

But there is another way of drying the
air besides extracting the moisture from it.
Warm air will hold more moisture than cold
air, and the hotter the air, the more moisture
it will hold ; so that hot air, even though it
actually contain more moisture than cold air,
may be relatively drier, and able to absorb
more moisture. Hence the best possible
condition for drying is a current of hot air.

Mercier's Electrification of Seeds.

Paris ciiid London Photo Agency.

Wheat grown by Mr Roseveare, Gains Cross Farm, Blandford. Electrified
on the left, unelectrified on the right. The straw grown from electrified
seed is stouter, and the ears are longer and plumper.

THE PROCESS

?>S

Heat has yet a further effect in aiding the
process of drying, though by itself it is, as
we have seen, useless. It increases the
activity of the particles of moisture in the
damp substance, and helps them to fly off
from its surface into the surrounding air.
Hence we arrive at the optimum conditions
for drying, and find that drying will take
place most rapidly when the body to be dried
is placed in the most rapid current of the
hottest air.

In the case of seed grain, very hot air
must not be used, for above a certain
temperature the grain is killed. We must
therefore depend mainly upon the rapidity
with which the air can be changed, and let
this air be of the maximum permissible
temperature, which is about loo degrees F.

After the electrification of the seed is
completed, therefore, the next process is to
raise the seed out of the soaking tank,
preferably in baskets, so that the surface
moisture may drain away, and then to
deposit it in an apparatus in which it is

36 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

subjected to a blast of air at loo degrees P.,
either driven or drawn through the mass of
seed, until it is dried to the proper degree
of desiccation. One effect of the war has
been to diminish very much the quantity of
beer that has been brewed, and the conse-
quence of this has been that a large number
of malt-kilns have been put out of use.
Many of these have been utilised for the
purpose of drying electrified seed, and have
answered the purpose very well. Owing
to the shortage of every kind of labour,
however, it has not always been possible
to engage the services of skilled maltsters ;
and a malt-kiln requires skilled supervision.
Thus it has happened that in some cases
the seed has not been properly dried, and
some failures are attributable to this cause.
Fortunately, the cause is no longer in
operation, and no fiirther accidents of this
kind need be anticipated.

The process is now complete, and the
seed may be sown. It should be sown
promptly, for the effect of the electrification

38 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

is not permanent. Under ordinary circum-
stances, and if the seed is kept meanwhile
in a dry place, the effect lasts for about a
month. It has upon occasion lasted for
considerably longer, but it cannot be de-
pended on to do so, and it is unsafe to defer
the sowing for more than a month. After
this period, though some effect may be
obtained, the full effect will not be obtained,
and the trouble and expense will be to some
extent wasted.

CHAPTER III

RESULTS

The electrification of seed improves in
many ways the crop grown from it. In
most cases it improves the crop in those
ways that are commercially desirable ; but
in a few cases it has produced a result that,
while increasing the quantity of the crop,
has increased it in a way that is commercially
undesirable. For example, the quantita-
tive yield of tobacco leaf has been much
increased ; but, in fine tobacco, what is
wanted is not so much increase in bulk as
improvement in quality. A smaller leaf of
better quality is of more value commercially
than a huge rank leaf. The result actually
produced has been the latter — a much larger
leaf, but of inferior quality. It is by no

39

40 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

means necessary or inevitable, however, that
the result should be of this character. It
must be remembered that, with all seeds but
those of cereals, the process is in its infancy,
and we are far yet from knowing all its
possibilities.

In this connection, a recent experiment
on peas is highly significant. Leguminous
plants of all kinds are refractory to the
process, which has hitherto produced little
result upon any of them. They have there-
fore been electrified in various ways and in
various solutions, and the effect of one of
these experiments on pea Duke of Albany
was very remarkable. Duke of Albany is a
pea that grows to a height of about four feet,
and in light soil has rather light-coloured
foliage, the leaves being about two inches in
diameter. In the experiment in question, a
row of fifteen yards in length was sown, as
to one half, with peas electrified in a certain
manner, while the other half was sown with
untreated peas out of the same bag as a
control. The control seeds all grew as

42 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

normal Duke of Albany's, of the usual
height, colour, and size of leaf. The elec-
trified peas threw up plants that grew to
only about eighteen inches in height, were
of a very dark green colour, and their
leaves were no larger than half-crowns.
The pods were about the usual size, and
contained the usual number of peas, but
were of much darker colour than those of
the controls. Now peas, garden peas at
any rate, are grown solely for their seeds,
and, except in colour, the seeds of the
treated plants were not very different from
those of the controls ; but if the peas had
been grown as some plants — coleus, for
instance — are, for depth of colour, they
would have taken a prize at any show ;
and if they had been grown for the flavour
of their foliage, as tested either by eating
or by smoking, it can scarcely be supposed
that this flavour would not have been
altered, and enhanced. It seems, therefore,
that, by modifying the electric treatment
of the seed, we can to some extent guide

RESULTS 43

the resulting alteration of the crop in the
direction we desire.

All this, however, is matter for future
experiment, and will take years to determine.
At present the potentialities of the process
have been determined only for wheat, oats,
and barley, and even for these probably only
in part. In them, however, it has been
wholly beneficial, and has resulted in in-
creasing the yield in just those respects that
are economically desirable.

In the first place, the quantity or bulk
of the grain is increased, and is usually
increased to a very material extent ; in the
second place, the quality of the grain is
improved ; and in the third place, the straw
is increased in length, in weight, and in
stoutness. All these results are commerci-
ally valuable, and it would be very desirable,
if it were practicable, to give in figures, in
bushel measures, in pounds and hundred-
weight avoirdupois, and in percentages, the
advantage in yield of the crops from electri-
fied seed over the crops from seed that has

44 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

not been electrified. It would seem to the
uninstructed that this must be a very easy
thing to do, and that, out of the hundreds
of cases in which electrified seed has been
grown by farmers for profit, some scores at
least of weighed and measured results should
be available for citation. But those who
form such an anticipation know little of the
nature of the farmer, and, as the scarcity
of weighed and measured results must tell
against the right estimation of the process,
it may be as well to explain here the kind
of man the farmer is, so as to account for
this scarcity. A mere mention or a brief
explanation will look like an excuse ; and
this is no excuse. It is a good, sound,
valid reason.

Farmers are notoriously a conservative
race, slow to adopt new ideas, new pro-
cesses, new implements, and new materials ;
and there is good reason for their conserva-
tism. Agriculture is the oldest of all
industries, and one of the most complex
and difficult to master and to pursue with

RESULTS 45

success. It is so much at the mercy of
the capricious forces of nature that it is
impossible for even the ablest farmer to
pursue it with constant success. Farming
requires more intelligence than any other
industrial occupation, the reasons being two.
In the first place, the farmer's task is with
living things, which are indefinitely more
difficult to mould to his purposes than are
the inanimate materials dealt with by the
engineer, the miner, the ironmaster, the
textile worker, the builder, or the cabinet-
maker. In the second place, the opera-
tions that he must conduct are much more
numerous and diverse than need to be
pursued by one man in any other industry.
The operator in a factory may pass a life-
time in doing nothing else but fashioning
the heads of pins, or attending to the regular
movements of a group of spindles or looms.
Such operations call for little skill, little
intelligence, and that all of one kind, and
a very limited kind ; but the agricultural
labourer's duties vary with every day in

46 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

the year, and every hour in the day. He
must " plough and sow, and reap and mow,
and be a farmer's boy." His work is with
living things ; and living things, whether
animal or vegetable, cannot be managed
by coercion. They must be humoured.
They must be understood. They must be
studied individually. Unlike inanimate sub-
stances, they have their likes and dislikes.
Unlike inanimate substances, they are sub-
ject to competition, both from one another
and from other live things. The plants of
wheat in a wheat-field have rivals in one
another, and a competitor in every weed
that grows near them ; and the live stock
similarly compete with one another — aye,
and sometimes bully one another, so that
one will monopoHse the best pasture, and
another will be left to get what he can.
The living things by which the farmer
makes his liveHhood are subject to diseases,
many of them infectious ; must be increased
by reproduction, a mysterious process ; are
subject to laws of heredity but little under-

RESULTS 47

stood ; and throughout the whole of his
operations the farmer finds himself every-
where confronted with mystery. In such
circumstances it behoves him to walk
warily, and to think twice before he leaves
the old ways, trodden smooth by the feet
of innumerable predecessors, and therefore
tried and safe. They may not lead to
astonishing and dramatic success, but at
least they are sure not to lead to dire
disaster ; so he goes in the old ways.
Besides this, the farmer is of necessity
keenly observant. His whole livelihood
depends daily and hourly on the keen-
ness and faithfulness of his observation of
a thousand things that the townsman is
utterly blind to. At an agricultural show,
a townsman can see no difference between
the winner of the champion cup and the
beast that is but commended ; but to every
farmer present they are wide as the poles
asunder. The farmer is keenly observant,
and has a tenacious memory. Both are
necessary in his business ; and the farmer

48 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

is not slow to observe the blunders com-
mitted by his would-be teachers, and not
quick to forget them. No class of men
in the world is so prone to mistrust the
amateur ; and it must in justice be said
that no class of men in the world has better
reason. Among amateurs, the professional
farmer reckons the professor of agriculture,
whose experiments are regarded with disdain,
and whose advice is received with sceptical
indifference ; and in this again the farmer
is not without justification. An instance
will suffice.

Professors used to make merry over a
queer superstition entertained by farmers
that there was a strong connection between
the disease of wheat known as rust, and the
presence of barberry bushes in the hedges
of the wheat-field. Rust, they said, appears
on wheat, if not solely where there are
barberries in the hedges, yet much more
frequently in such fields, which are also
subject to more virulent attacks. Over
this "irrational superstition" the professors

RESULTS 49

made merry, until it was found that rust
is a fungus ; that, like many fungi, it passes
through different stages in its existence ; and
that one of these stages is passed upon the
barberry. When this discovery was made,
it was the farmers' turn to laugh, and it gave
them a pull upon the professors, and a dis-
trust of their judgment, which remain to this
day ; for farmers not only are keen observers,
as the incident shows, but also have tenacious
memories.

In comparison with the town-dweller, the
farmer leads a solitary life. His neighbours
are few, and are comparatively far away ; and,
having fewer opportunities of human inter-
course, he has fewer gifts of expression.
He feels his way to his modes of action by
dint of accumulated experiences, and reason-
ings that he never puts into words, so that
he seen:is to reach his decisions by a sort of
instinct ; but his decisions are usually right,
and founded on good reason, though he may
be unable to put his reasons into words.
He shares with other professional men a

4

so ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

contempt for the amateur and for the out-
sider who offers advice, and perhaps he feels
this contempt more than men of other
professions, and this for two reasons. He
feels more than men of other professions
the vital necessity of experience, and the
uselessness of instruction that is not ac-
companied by experience ; and he has, in
that tenacious memory of his, not a few
instances in which the advice of outsiders
has proved to be wrong. He has seen
the amateur and inexperienced agriculturist
suffer heavy lo§s by the premature adoption
of methods that have been insufficiently
tried ; and thus he acquires a distrust of
all new methods — a distrust that he is apt
to carry too far.

For these reasons it was not easy to induce
farmers to try the method of submitting
their seeds to the electro-chemical process.
It was new, it was strange, and it was
recommended by an outsider who was not
a farmer, and had no experience of agricul-
ture ; but, under a certain amount of pressure

RESULTS 51

from his employer, a farmer was at last
prevailed upon to try it. He tried it, but
he tried it with a firm and settled conviction
that it was useless and would turn out to be
a failure. It is not too much to say, for he
has himself admitted, that he wanted it to
be a failure, and therefore he made no effort
to make it succeed. But much to his
surprise it did succeed. Its success was
undeniable, and upon a second trial he was
less sceptical and more inclined to give a
fair chance to the new process. Again it
was successful, and now he pursued it in
good earnest. He put up a plant to treat
his own seed under the supervision of the
inventor, and is now become an enthusiastic
advocate of the new process.

Farmers pay little attention to the advice
of inexperienced outsiders, and their reluc-
tance is natural, and is usually not unwise ;
but they pay much attention to the experi-
ence of other farmers, and are always wilUng
to try a method that has been found success-
ful by their neighbours. Farmers meet at

52 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

markets and at ordinaries and talk over
farming affairs, and in this way a knowledge
of the electro -chemical process and the
practice of employing it spread from farm
to farm in the neighbourhood in which it
was invented and first employed. For
several years this was the only way in which
it spread, for the inventor himself is as
cautious as a farmer, and was unwilling to
make his invention publicly known until it
was proved and proved and better proved,
until it was proved up to the hilt and could
not be gainsaid. This stage is now reached,
and he has been induced at length, under
some little pressure, to make it known to
the world.

But now arose a difficulty from the general
practice of farmers. It has been said that,
owing to the circumstances of their lives,
they have little gift of expression. Their
lives are passed out of doors, in actual con-
tact with things, and it is irksome to them
to sit down, after an exhausting day's work
in the open air, and commit their thoughts

RESULTS 53

to paper. Their memories serve them well
enough, and they see no necessity to call in
the aid of pen and paper to assist them.
For this reason farmers are not good book-
keepers. They keep in their minds general
results rather than accurate figures, for
which they see no necessity, and which
consume time and energy that, as it seems
to the farmer, would be better employed in
other work. If he sees, as he is quick to
see, that a certain manure or a certain mode
of cultivation produces a material increase
in his crop, that is enough for him. He
sees no necessity to weigh and measure the
result to determine precisely how many
pounds or bushels he has gained. He is a
busy man. He is always short of labour.
Weighing and measuring on the large scale
required by farm crops are tedious processes,
and consume much labour and time, often
at the busiest season of the year. It is only
during the last four years, the years of war,
when labour has been scarce almost to the
point of famine, that the electro-chemical

54 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

process has been used by farmers ; and it is
only in a very small fraction of the cases in
which it has been used that weighed and
measured results have been obtained. Even
of' these, a considerable proportion would
not have been obtained if an independent
expert, quite unconnected with the farmers,
had not been sent by the Board of Agri-
culture to visit several farms for the express
purpose of investigating the results of the
process, and had not himself measured off
portions of the crops with scientific accuracy,
reaped them, threshed them, and weighed
and measured the proceeds. General im-
pressions of the value of the process, opinions
in its favour, descriptions of the superiority
of the crops resulting from it, the inventor
has in plenty ; but weighed and measured
results are few. As far as they go, however,
they are almost uniformly in favour of the
process ; and when we take into account the
inevitable uncertainty and apparent caprice
of the results of farming operations, when
we allow for the disturbing influences, some

RESULTS ^5

of which will be enumerated on a subsequent
page, the general uniformity of benefit that
has resulted from the use of the process is
such as to establish its value beyond the
shadow of a doubt.

In previous years failures were mingled
with successes. As seasons went by, and
as with each season the process was better
understood and its details perfected, the pro-
portion of successes to failures increased.
The reasons of the failures were discovered
and provided against, until in the harvest of
1 9 1 8 failures — by which is meant failure to
secure a more valuable crop from the treated
than from the untreated seed — were almost
entirely eliminated.

The following are the measured and
weighed results reported up to the present
as obtained in the harvest of 191 8 : —

[Table

56 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

Gain per
Acre in
Grain.

Gain per Acre
in Straw.

1 . Mr W. W. Lovelace,

Puddlehinton, Dor-
chester.

2. Mr C. Foot, Bin-

combe, Dorchester.

3. Mr H. H. Caice, Bin-

combe, Dorchester.

4. Mr H. Legg, Blashen-

well, Corfe Castle.

5. Mr W. W. Lovelace,

Puddlehinton.

6. Messrs S. & H. Smith,

Rollington, Corfe
Castle.

7. Mrs Duke, Godman-

stone.

Wheat,
7 bushels.

Wheat,
6^ bushels.

Barley,
1 6 bushels.

Oats,

18 bushels.

Oats,
6 bushels.

Oats,

19 bushels.

Barley,
2 bushels loss.

2 tons 8 cvft.

Loss I cwt.
Gain 9 cw^t.
Gain 10 cwt.
Gain 4 cwt.

Loss 5 cwt.

Gain about
33 per cent.*

* The straw was estimated by the farmer when the
whole field was threshed.

These results were obtained by the in-
dependent expert already mentioned. In
addition, the following have been reported
by the farmers concerned : —

RESULTS

57

8. Mr S. Hawkins,

Whitestone, Exeter.

9. Mrs Duke, Godman-

stone.

10. Mr A. H. Moore,

Woodlands Park,
Leatherhead.

11. Mr Godwin, More-

ton, Dorset.

12. Mr R. S. Hicks, Wil-

braham Temple,
Cambs.

13. Mr Stidson, Thurle-

ston, Devon.

14. Mr W. T. Maye,

Charlton, Dorset.

15. Mr A. T. Cock, Ford

Farm, Lispeard.

16. R. S. Hicks, Esq.,

Wijbraham Temple,
Cambs.

Gain per
Acre in
Grain.

Wheat,
8 J bushels.

Wheat,
y^ bushels.

Wheat,
5| bushels.

Oats,
12 bushels.

Oats,

5 bushels.

Barley,
50 per cent.

Barley,
21 per cent.

Wheat,
12 bushels.

Mangels, 2
tons 15 cwt.

Gain per Acre
in Straw.

20 per cent.

It is true that this is but a meagre list in
comparison with the 1 50 farmers who reaped

58 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

last year corn grown from seed treated by
the Wolfryn process, but the reasons for the
scarcity of measured and weighed results
have already been given ; and these reports
have been supplemented by a chorus of
approval, expressed in general terms, which
it is scarcely worth while to reproduce. It
may be mentioned, however, that of 27
farmers supplied by Messrs Holman & Sons
in this, their first season, every one has
reported that his yield of grain was much
larger from the treated than from the un-
treated seed, but that, owing to scarcity of
labour, he was unable to give weighed and
measured results.

Through other electrifying stations the
inventor has received fewer reports from
farmers ; but he is not disheartened by this.
It is no libel on farmers to say that, if the
results had been unsatisfactory, the agents
who electrified the seed, and were paid for
doing so, would certainly have heard of it.
In this case, at any rate, no news is good
news. It would not be true to say that no

RESULTS 59

complaints have been received. There have
been a very few ; but in every case, without
any exception, in which the result has been
disappointing, it was found on investigation
that a manifest error had been made in
the application of the process. Either the
operator was inexperienced and misunder-
stood his instructions, or there was some
oversight, or some fault in the apparatus.
In the most efficient factories mistakes are
made. The best workmen sometimes spoil
their work ; and, though the process of
electrifying seeds is a very simple process,
men are fallible and will sometimes make
mistakes ; apparatus is of human construc-
tion and will sometimes break down or get
out of order — and then things will go
wrong ; but in no case has failure been traced
to the process itself. Whenever there has been
a failure — and, since the process is carried
out by human agency, there have been a
few — the failure has without exception been
traced to faulty execution.

Of the fourteen results of growing electri-

6o ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

fied corn that are given above, one-half were
obtained by an official who investigated the
matter on behalf of the Food Production
Department of the Board of Agriculture.
This gentleman spent about a fortnight over
his investigations among the farms of Dorset-
shire on which electrified seed was growing
alongside of unelectrified seed from the same
bulk. His method was to measure ofF two
plots of two perches each, one plot on each
side of the dividing line between the two
crops. The two plots were so close together
as to minimise any chance of difference in
the character of the soil on which they were
grown (see pp. -jj etseq.), and all the farmers
agreed that there was practically no differ-
ence. Each plot was reaped as close as
possible to the ground, and the resulting
crop was then carefully threshed, weighed,
and measured. About these results, there-
fore, there can be no possible doubt ; and
it is noticeable that six out of the seven
showed a positive advantage in favour of
the electrified seed, and the average advan-

RESULTS 6 I

tage was very considerable. Of the seventh
case, in which no advantage appeared, I
shall have something to say later on.

The official made his report to the Food
Production Department, but this report has
not yet been published, and presumably will
not now be published ; but the Department
has composed the following Memorandum,
which it issues to members of the public
who inquire as to the merits of the Wolfryn
process : —

Food Production Department — Technical Committee.

Wolfryn Electro-Chemical Treatment of Seeds.

This process is understood to consist in passing
a regulated electric current through a tank con-
taining a weak solution of some neutral salt, such
as common salt, in which the seed undergoing
treatment is steeped.

Pot experiments with treated barley and oats
made at the Rothamsted Experimental Station in
191 8, at the request of the Technical Committee,
gave a result slightly in favour of the treatment in
the case of oats, but negative in the case of barley.

62 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

The process has gained some popularity among
farmers, particularly in Dorsetshire ; in the latter
county it is stated that over 2000 acres were
under treated crops in 191 8'. A member of the
Technical Committee, accompanied by the Execu-
tive Officer of the Dorsetshire Agricultural
Executive Committee, visited certain crops and
reported that on the date of inspection (July 1 8th)
the treated crops in most cases appeared to give
the heavier yields. This view was supported by
actual weighings of small areas of certain of the
crops made later on behalf of the Committee.
The weighings showed an increased yield of corn
in six out of seven cases (wheat, barley, and oats)
varying from 240-900 lbs. per acre, and a decrease
in the seventh case (barley). Potatoes gave a de-
creased yield in four cases out of the five selected.

In interpreting these results it must be remem-
bered that the weighings were made on small plots,
that the plots were not in duplicate, and that, as
far as the Committee are aware, no special steps
were taken to secure uniformity in the soil on
which the trials were made.

On the information at their disposal the Com-
mittee are not in a position to come to any definite
conclusion on the claims put forward for the pro-
cess ; but, assuming that the treatment does actually
increase the yield of the resulting crops, it would

RESULTS 63

still be impossible to say at present whether such
results were due to the treatment as a whole, in-
cluding the effect of the electric current, or whether
equally good results might not be obtained by
either soaking the grain in the appropriate fluid
(or water) for a suitable period with subsequent
drying, or by drying the grain at a suitable
temperature without the previous soaking or elec-
trical treatment. Experiments are in progress
with a view to securing information on these
points.

Technical Committee,

Food Production Department,

72 Victoria Street, S.W. i.

It will be seen that the Memorandum
contains a certain amount of fact, but this
is enveloped in so much commentary that
the facts are obscured, to some extent thrust
out of sight, and to some extent minimised
and depreciated. If we strip away this
commentary and allow the facts to stand by
themselves, they are as follows : —

In six cases out of seven, the crops from
the electrified seed showed an important
advantage over the crops from unelectri-
fied seed.

64 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

The amount of the advantage ranged
from 240 lbs. to 900 lbs. of grain per acre;
or from 5 bushels 20 lbs. to 16 bushels
4 lbs. per acre ; or from 8 per cent, to
61 per cent.

The average gain in yield of grain was
10^ bushels, or more than 2^ sacks per
acre.

The money value of this increase is, at
present prices, from £2, 4s. 3d. to £y, 12s.
per acre, with an average profit of ^^4, i6s.
after deducting the cost of electrification.

These are the facts as ascertained, recorded,
and published by the Board of Agriculture,
and the facts need no commentary.

But the explanations, surmises, and doubts
by which the facts are overlaid and obscured
do need some commentary ; and the com-
ments that I venture to make upon them
are these : —

When divested of unnecessary verbiage
and put in plain terms, the comments of
the Board of Agriculture, or of its Food
Production Department, or of th? Technical

RESULTS 65

Committee of that Department, whichever
is the author of them, amount to this :

1 . The Board, or the Department, or the
Committee, is not sure that the conditions
under which the treated and untreated crops
were growing were identical.

2. The Board is not sure that the differ-
ences between the crops may not have been
due to some other cause than the electrifica-
tion of the seed.

3. Though this important advantage
followed in six cases out of seven when
electrified and unelectrified seeds were sown
side by side on large acreages under ordinary
farming conditions, yet some experiments in
pots showed no important advantage.

Let us take these comments seriatim.

I. The electrified and unelectrified seeds
grew side by side in the same field on ad-
joining patches or plots of ground ; but
the Board is not sure that the conditions
under which the two crops were grown
were identical. Reference to p. jj et seq. will
show what the Board probably had in mind

5

66 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

in making this comment, and it must be
admitted at once that the conditions were
not identical. If we are to be scientifically
accurate, conditions that are identical in
the strict sense of the word can never be
secured. Even in laboratory experiments,
when the experimenter has everything under
strict control, and can use not only seed from
the same bulk, as was used in these field
experiments, but also soil from the same
compost heap, and pots from the same cast,
and can stand them side by side, and treat
them to the best of his knowledge and skill
in precisely the same manner, measuring and
weighing every drop of water and every
grain of manure that is supplied to them —
even in these conditions the treatment of
the two plants is not identical. The con-
ditions may, by additional precautions, be
made more and more closely alike ; but
they can never be identical, and to complain
that they are not identical is not to the
point. They must be different : that is
unavoidable ; but the point is, were they

RESULTS 67

sufficiently different to account for the differences
in the crops ? This is all that matters, and,
as to this, the officer of the Board who
made the experiments must be presumed
to know his business. He was sent to make
the fairest possible comparison, and there is
no reason to suppose that he was lacking
in skill or in honesty. Both he and the
farmers upon whose land the crops were
growing were convinced that there was no
such difference in the soil or aspect or other
conditions of the plots compared as would
account for the difference in the crops.
The cause of this difference must therefore
have been in the difference of the seed.

2. Supposing and granting, however, that
the difference in the crops is due to differ-
ence in the seed, the Board is not sure that
the difference in the seed is due to its
electrification. It may have been due to
the soaking. It may have been due to the
soaking combined with the drying. Or it
may have been due to the soaking in a
chemical solution.

68 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

These surmises have a certain plausibility,
and are in accordance with our knowledge of
the subject. It is known to every gardener
that seed will germinate more rapidly if it
is soaked for a few hours before it is sown.
The germination is usually accelerated by
several days. It is known to every ex-
perienced and advanced agriculturist that
soaking and then drying the seed equalises
and improves the germination, though not
the germinating energy. These things have
been known since the time of the Pharaohs,
and, though it cannot be positively asserted,
it is probable that our first parents, when
they were cultivating the Garden of Eden,
soaked their seed in the waters of the Tigris
or the Euphrates. Soaking the seed in
order to accelerate germination is one of
the routine operations of gardening ; but
if the Board of Agriculture wishes to test
the value of the practice, no harm will
be done by its experiments on the subject.
It is always desirable to test the truth of
traditional beliefs, and the Board might add

RESULTS 69

to these experiments others designed to
ascertain whether a stone thrown into the
air really does, as is generally believed, fall
to the ground.

The effect on the crop of soaking and
drying the seed was tested some forty
years ago with German laboriousness by
two German experimenters, and the Board
of Agriculture has unearthed these forgotten
experiments and republished them in its
Journal for February 1919. The experi-
ments, it is to be remarked, were made on
no cereal but rye. Considerable increase
in the crop was noted in some cases ; but
the gist and moral of the experiments — a
moral which the Board of Agriculture fails
to point — is that, although these experiments
were made forty years ago, and although
they were made in Germany, from whence
all scientific and reliable knowledge has
been supposed for so many years to emanate,
the practice they inculcate has never been
adopted, even in Germany. If there had
been any value in it, sufficient to compensate

70 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

for the trouble required, we may be sure that
it would have become general long ago.

The Board of Agriculture is now, it
appears, conducting experiments to discover
whether the increase in the crop, which the
Board does not deny, may not be due to the
soaking in the chemical solution, and not
to the accompanying electrification. If the
Board had communicated with Mr Fry, he
could have enlightened it, and saved it the
trouble of experimenting. The possibility
of the effect being due to the soaking in the
chemical and not to the electrification is
obvious, so obvious that the Board of Agri-
culture noticed it at once, and it is needless
to say that it was present to the mind of
the inventor of the Wolfryn process from
the very outset of his experiments. He has
found — and the information is very much at
the service of the Board of Agriculture —
that soaking in a chemical solution and sub-
sequent drying of the seed does produce some
increase in the resulting crop ; and the in-
crease is sometimes so considerable that it

RESULTS 71

seemed worth while to take out a patent for
the operation. Mr Fry accordingly applied
for and obtained a patent, and the belated
experiments of the Board of Agriculture
will be an infringement of this patent — an
infringement that Mr Fry is not likely,
however, to resent ; and for this reason :
that, though in many cases an improvement
in the crop does undoubtedly follow on the
practice, yet this improvement is usually far
less than is obtained by the additional use
of electricity ; and when once the seed is
soaked in the chemical solution, and must
thereafter be dried, by far the greater part
of the trouble and expense is already in-
curred, and the additional cost of electrifying
is so small, and the additional gain so great,
that, having gone thus far, it would be silly
not to complete the process.

The only other matter that calls for
comment in the Board of Agriculture's
Memorandum is that referring to potatoes.
The electrified potatoes showed a decreased
yield in four cases out of the five selected.

72 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

In fairness to the inventor and to his process,
it should have been added that he has never
advised its adoption for potatoes except ex-
perimentally. It is obvious that potatoes are
very different from wheat, oats, and barley,
and that the former require treatment very
different from the latter. The treatment of
potatoes is still in the experimental stage ;
the plots selected by the Board's expert
were experimental ; and a certain propor-
tion of experiments are, as will be presently
explained, bound to fail, and intended to fail.
Great success has followed the electrification
of seed potatoes in some instances ; consider-
able loss has followed in others. This is the
history of all such experiments, and will be
the history of all subsequent experiments.
It is by the method of trial and error that
success is at last attained ; and during the
experimental stage, in which potatoes still
are, failure is as much to be expected as
success. To take one feature only : it is
manifest that potatoes contain a very much
larger proportion of water than corn, and

RESULTS 73

if potatoes are dried to the same degree as
corn is dried, that is, until all the water
but about I 2 per cent, of the weight of the
substance is extracted, the potatoes will be
seriously damaged, and may even be killed.
This is, of course, always taken into con-
sideration by the inventor himself, but it has
not always been remembered by those who
have electrified comparatively large quanti-
ties ; and the seed potatoes, and consequently
the crops, have suffered in consequence. It
would be manifestly unfair and misleading to
put such failures down to the discredit of
the Wolfryn process. This process is not
yet recommended, and has not been recom-
mended, for potatoes except experimentally.
Some of the experiments have been very
successful, and there is no reason to doubt
that, when the conditions of treatment have
been accurately determined, potato crops will
be as much benefited as crops of grain.

CHAPTER IV

FAILURES

DuRiNci the early stages of experimentation
on any given kind of seed, and, indeed,
during the early stages of experimentation
on almost anything, failures are inevitable,
and are normal. The purpose in view is
to discover -the best method, and the best
method cannot be selected if all are alike.
What are to be discovered are the limits
within which the best treatment lies ; and
these limits can only be discovered by going
beyond them, and so courting failure. For
instance, it is desired to find the best dura-
tion of treatment for a kind of seed that has
not been tried before. A large number of
parcels of the seed are taken, and are treated
for different lengths of time, beginning with

74

FAILURES 75

a period that is pretty sure to be too short,
and ending with one that is pretty sure to
be too long. Each lot of seed is then sown,
and, if the guess as to the proper duration
has been about right, those seeds that have
had the shortest treatment will show no
advantage, and with them the process may
be said to have failed ; and those seeds that
have had the longest treatment will have
been injured, and perhaps will not germinate
at all, and with them also the process may
be said, in a certain sense, to have failed.
In one sense, then, the experiments with
the first and last lots will be failures ; but
manifestly this is a wrong term to apply to
them. The purpose of the experiment is
not to produce an increase in the crop
yielded by every lot, but to find out which
lot yields the greatest increase. In this
purpose the experiment will be so far suc-
cessful that it will justify further trials in
which the extremes are omitted, and the
new lots begun with a longer treatment
than the shortest of the previous trial, and

76 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

ended with a shorter treatment than the
longest of that trial ; and so by repeated
trials the duration is narrowed down until
it can be fixed within half an hour or
so. Then the degree of concentration or
strength of the solution is tested in a similar
way ; and again, in this series of tests,
some of the lots will exhibit no effect, and
others will be damaged or killed ; but it
would be a misnomer to call either of
them failures.

When once the standard treatment for
any kind of seed is determined, no failure
is met with in laboratory experiments,
provided the subsequent experiments are
properly conducted ; but failures may still
be met with in field experiments, or in
the practical experience of farmers, even if
the process is properly carried out. Such
failures, in which no increase, or perhaps
an actual diminution, of the yield of the
treated seed is discovered on threshing the
crop, are rare, but they do occur now and
then, and they must be expected and allowed

FAILURES 77

for. The causes are various, and are some-
times assignable and sometimes not.

It must be remembered that the raising
of agricultural crops is an extremely complex
operation, subject to conditions that are
imperfectly understood, and that, when elec-
tricity is not used, crops sometimes fail for
reasons quite apart from any defect in the
quality of the seed. The depredations of
rabbits, hares, birds, insects, and fungous
diseases are by no means uniformly spread
over a large field. The damage inflicted by
rabbits w^ill be greatest on the side nearest
to their warren. The damage inflicted by
pheasants will be greater on the side nearest
to the wood in which they roost. The
competition of weeds will be in the parts of
the field nearest to the hedgerows, and some
forms of fungous disease spread from the
hedgerows in which the fungi pass one
phase of their existence. Again, some
weeds, such as couch, occur in patches, and
these patches may be larger, or more numer-
ous, or both, in one part of a field than in

78 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

another. In some fields the soil is patchy,
gravel coming to the surface in places and
being absent elsewhere ; or the subsoil may
be different or may come nearer to the
surface in one place than in another, so that
here there may be a couple of feet of good
loam, and there only six inches. Again,
if a field is on a slope, the surface rain-water
will flow from the higher to the lower level ;
and if the subsoil slopes and is impervious,
the rain that has soaked into the soil will
have a similar trend. Even if the subsoil
is not impervious, water that soaks into the
soil will spread horizontally, and, if the field
is on a slope, will come to the surface and
flow down. But rain-water in the soil
dissolves the manurial substances in the soil,
and carries them with it ; and when the rain
evaporates and the soil dries, the manurial
substances are left where the rain has carried
them to. For this reason, the lower portion
of a sloping field is richer in manure than
the upper portion, and, other things being
equal, will yield a better crop. So, too,

FAILURES 79

the lower portion of a field is less exposed
to certain winds than the upper portion,
and these have their influence on the quan-
tity of the crop produced. The trees in
the hedgerows rob the adjacent parts of the
field of a portion of their nourishment,
shade them from the sun, and protect them
from certain winds. Sheep may have been
folded upon one part of the field and not
upon another, so producing a great difference
in fertility ; and even where they are folded
they manure the ground irregularly. From
all these considerations it will be seen that
the crop in one part of a field is by no
means necessarily grown under the same
conditions as the crop in another part of the
same field ; but, on the contrary, and especi-
ally if the field is large, or sloping, or both,
part of the crop is almost necessarily grown
under more favourable conditions than other
parts, and uniformity in the conditions of
growth must be rather the exception than
the rule. The differences between one part
of a field and another may not be great, but,

8o ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

as the crop is subjected to these conditions
week after week and month after month, they
must have their effect, and must to some
extent vitiate the comparison between crops
grown in different parts of the same field.

So potent are these influences that they
must be allowed for, and are allowed for,
in estimating the value of any application
of treatment to the crop. Of all artificial
or chemical manures, none has more thor-
oughly established its value and reputation
among farmers than sulphate of ammonia.
It is used in immense quantities all over the
country, and no agriculturist ever dreams
of questioning its value. But sulphate of
ammonia is by no means uniformly success-
ful in increasing the crop. It usually pro-
duces a very decided increase, but it does
not always produce the same amount of
increase, and sometimes it produces no in-
crease at all. Sometimes the crop manured
with sulphate of ammonia is a failure. But
as it is successful in increasing the crop
in about 80 per cent, of the cases in which

FAILURES 8 1

it is used, it is recognised, in spite of its
failure in the remaining 20 per cent., as
one of the most valuable manures that is
used on the farm. When we speak of the
electro-chemical ti-eatment of seed as being
a valuable adjunct to agriculture, and as a
pow^erful means of increasing the crops, we
must therefore not be understood to assert
that it will be successful in every case, or that
the increase that it usually produces will be
of the same amount in every case. If we can
show that it is followed by a decided increase
in the yield in 80 per cent, of the cases in
which it is tried, we have proved our point.
Up to the present, it has produced a decided
increase in much more than 80 per cent, of
the cases in which it has been tried.

In the circumstances above described,
there may be an apparent failure, but there
will not be a real failure. There is no real
failure unless the treated seed, when sown
and grown in similar soil and under the
same conditions as the untreated, fails to
show a substantial increase in yield. We

82 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

now consider the cases in which there is a
real failure, and the causes of it.

In the early stages of applying a new and
ill-understood process, failures are inevitable.
Even when a process is well known and
fully established by the successful practice
of years, there are occasional failures. As
we all know, even the electric light some-
times goes out suddenly : even the telephone
sometimes fails to carry its messages : even
a locomotive engine sometimes breaks an
axle or a connecting-rod : even an explosive
shell may be a dud. Perfection is seldom
maintained continuously in human affairs,
and even the electro-chemical treatment of
seeds sometimes fails to produce an increase
in the resulting crop as compared with the
control. To condemn the process on this
account would be unreasonable. It would
be as unreasonable as to refuse to travel by
railway because there is sometimes an acci-
dent on the line. To refrain from using
the process because the increase in the crop
is not always up to the usual mark is as un-

FAILURES 83

reasonable as to refuse to travel by railway
because trains are not always up to time.
" Depend upon it," says Dr Johnson, " a
fallible being will fail somewhere " ; and de-
pend upon it, a process executed by fallible
beings will fail sometimes.

The reasons for some of these failures
have already been given. They lie in the
unevenness and irregularity of the soil and
other conditions in which the seed is sown.
The reasons for other failures, or partial
failures, lie in the faulty performance of the
process. If the process is wrongly per-
formed, its failure lies at the door of the
performer, not at that of the process. We
might as well blame the engine for not
going when the fire is not lit or the steam
is not turned on, or the clock for stopping
when it is not wound. In the early experi-
ments, mistakes were made by the inventor
himself. That was inevitable. He had to
find out by the expensive process of trial
and error the conditions of success. These
conditions are now ascertained for cereals.

84 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

and now there should be no failures ; but the
mischief is that amateurs will attempt to
conduct a process with which they are im-
perfectly acquainted, in which they omit
some necessary precaution, and then, when
failure results, they blame, not themselves,
but the process.

In the early days of the experiments, the
inventor freely distributed treated seed to
various people for trial. As he had not
then ascertained all the necessary precautions,
some of these lots were faulty, and resulted
in failure. The experimenters thereupon
condemned the seed, and the process, and
the inventor, and would have no more to
do with any of them. The attitude was
perhaps not unnatural, and it may have been
incautious on the part of the inventor to
distribute the seed before he was sure of
success ; but, if incautious in this respect, he
is cautious as an experimenter, and wished
to eliminate the personal factor. However
careful he may be, an inventor can scarcely
be sure that he does not unintentionally and

FAILURES 85

unconsciously favour his own invention, and
Mr Fry desired to eliminate every possible
source of uncertainty. He therefore sent
samples of treated and untreated seed to
certain agricultural colleges, with the re-
quest that they might be grown experi-
mentally. This was in the early days " of
the process, when the proper conditions
were only guessed at, and when failures
were frequent ; and the particular experi-
ments in question were failures. They
either showed an actual loss, or no gain, or
a gain so small as to be within the normal
margin of error. In the light of subsequent
experience it is now known that, with seed
treated as these samples were treated, no
benefit could be expected ; but the colleges
to which the seeds were sent did not take the
view that the tests they were asked to make
were experimental. They regarded them as
decisive of the value of the process ; and as
the results showed no benefit, they con-
demned the process wholly and utterly, and
regard this condemnation as final.

86 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

Of course it is to be remembered that
the inventor of the Wolfryn process is not
a professor. He is not even an agricul-
turist. He is an outsider, and professional
men do not welcome the intrusion of an
outsider into their domain, which they are
apt to guard with a jealous exclusiveness.
Doctors are not enthusiastic admirers of
the successes of the bone-setter ; military
men have not much respect for the amateur
strategist ; the clergy are impatient of the
theologian who has not gone through the
orthodox theological training ; and pro-
fessors of agriculture are not wholly exempt
from the common failings of humanity.

It is quite true that this attitude of the
professional man to the amateur is in most
cases justified. A little knowledge, if it is
expressed with airs of importance, is very
apt to expose its possessor to ridicule ; but
it is not always safe to despise the outsider.
Many of the most important inventions,
which have completely revolutionised various
departments of industry, have been made by

FAILURES 87

outsiders, men trained and brought up in
occupations with which their inventions had
nothing at all to do. It is well known that
Arkwright, a barber, invented the spinning
jenny ; that Newcomen, an ironmonger, and
Watt, a mathematical instrument maker,
between them invented the steam engine ;
and that Trevithick, a miner, and George
Stephenson, another miner, between them
invented the steam locomotive ; that DoUond,
a weaver, and Hall, a barrister, both invented
achromatic lenses ; that Lassels, a brewer,
discovered the satellites of Uranus, which
had itself been discovered by W. Herschel,
a music -master ; that Graham, who dis-
covered the diurnal variation of the compass,
was a clock-maker ; and that the gravity
escapement in clocks was invented by
Becket-Denison, who was a barrister ; that
the electric telegraph was perfected by
Wheatstone, a maker of musical instru-
ments ; — and the list might be extended
indefinitely. There is therefore no primd
facie improbability in the invention by Mr

88 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

Fry, who is not an agriculturist, of an
important improvement in agriculture. It
may be that the professors of agriculture
are not very pleased that an outsider should
have discovered an important aid that they
have overlooked to agriculture, and they
have not hitherto shown themselves sympa-
thetic towards the process ; but the field of
experimentation that it opens up is so vast
that there is plenty of room for an army of
experimenters.

But even now that the process is, if not
perfected, yet practically quite ascertained
and successful, failures do occasionally occur;
and when they occur, it is invariably found
upon investigation that the fault has been,
not in the process itself, but in lapses from
it. The most important of these are the
following : —

I. The solution employed may not be
ideally suitable to the soil in which the seed
is grown. There is much need of further
research in this respect. Seed that has been
treated electro-chemically may show an im-

FAILURES 89

portant gain over untreated seed when the
two are sown in one soil, and yet, when
other seed of the same batch is sown in
another soil, there may be no material
difference. It is evident that the determin-
ing factor must be the suitability of the salt
used in the solution to the soil in which the
seed is grown.

2. The duration of the process may not
be suitable to the kind of seed under treat-
ment. A period of treatment that is right
for one kind of seed may be enough to
electrocute another kind, and injure or
destroy its germinating energy. A dura-
tion of treatment that may be right for one
kind of seed may not be long enough to
produce any appreciable effect upon another.
The duration of the treatment must be
adjusted to the peculiarity of the seed, and
the proper length of treatment can be dis-
covered only by a careful course of experi-
mentation. Inattention to this matter may
result in utter failure.

3. But the chief cause of failure, the

90 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

cause of 90 per cent, of the bad failures,
is in the drying. After electrification the
seed must be dried ; and it must be dried to
just the right extent and at just the right
temperature. If the seed is insufficiently
dried, it will be apt to heat if it is kept in
bulk, or even in the sack, and then may
begin to germinate before it is sown ; or,
if it heats sufficiently, its germinating power
may be destroyed. Even if it does not heat,
it may be mildewed. If it is not kept, but
is sown at once, it may be too much swollen
with moisture to pass through the drill. If,
on the other hand, it is over-dried, the seed
is weakened in its germinating energy, or
may even be killed. Again, if it is dried
at too high a temperature, it may be baked
or even scorched, and in either case it is
killed. The drying is a very important part
of the process, and, when the process fails
to give an increase in the crop, the fault
is usually in the drying.

Another source of failure is in delaying
the sowing of the seed. The effi^ct of the

FAILURES 91

electro-chemical process on the seed is
transient. After a time it passes away, so
that, if the seed is kept too long out of the
ground, it reverts to its previous condition,
and no effect from the electrification can be
expected. If the seed is kept in a dry place,
the effect lasts about a month ; but toward
the end of a month the effect passes off, and
seed sown after this time must not be ex-
pected to show much improvement in the
crop. It has happened during the war,
when electrifying stations were few, that
seed had to be sent a considerable distance
for treatment, and a month was consumed
by the return journey. In this case the
increase in the yield, which, if the seed had
been sown promptly, might have been
expected to be 25 or 30 per cent., was only
5 per cent. Here again the process itself
could not be justly blamed.

CHAPTER V

DISADVANTAGES

Besides occasional failures, the causes of
which can almost always be traced, and found
to be either in the faulty performance of
the process, or in delay in the sowing, or
in inequality of the conditions under which
the treated seed and the control seed is sown
and cultivated, there are certain disadvan-
tages at present in the process, some of
which are inherent, while others will be
removed as it becomes better understood.
Fortunately, none of them is sufficiently
important to detract seriously from the
benefits that the process confers. They are
as follows : —

In the first place, another operation is

added to those necessary for the cultivation

92

DISADVANTAGES 93

of the farm. On the other hand, the burden
of this process does not fall upon the farmer.
He does not need to learn how to conduct
it. It is done for him. It requires from
him no extra skill, no extra labour, no
new operation, no additional machine or
implement, no more house-room, no addi-
tion to his expenses beyond the fee for
treating his seed, which is in most cases
trifling in comparison with the advantage
he gains.

Secondly, it involves the delay of a day
or two in sowing, and this may have some
importance in view of the vicissitudes of
the weather. If the farmer does not send
his seed for treatment until the sowing
season is actually upon him, he may miss
the best days for sowing, and be compelled
to sow when the land is not in as good con-
dition as in might have been. The remedy
is manifest. He should send his seed in
good time. Electrifying stations are now
sufficiently numerous to ensure that the
farmer will not have to send his seed to any

94 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

great distance, and sufficiently well equipped
to ensure that his seed will be treated and
returned promptly.^ In time, travelling
plants will be installed, which will go
round from farm to farm and treat the
seed upon the spot, in the farmer's own
stackyard ; and by this means time will be
saved and trouble abolished. In any case,
the farmer has a margin of time of about
a month before he need sow his treated
seed ; and although the sooner it is sown
after treatment the better, yet if he has
his seed treated early in the season, so as
to have it ready before the time for sowing
actually arrives, he will not miss a favour-
able opportunity.

Thirdly, the results are not uniform ;
but it is necessary to explain what this
means. The results are uniform in this

1 Experience since this was written shows that it is
stated too absolutely. The rush of orders for the spring
sowing of 1919 has been so great that the plant installed
has proved insufficient, and orders for the electrification
of hundreds of sacks have had to be refused. Electrifying
plants are rapidly being enlarged and multiplied.

DISADVANTAGES 95

respect, that all the seed electrified at one
operation and sown in similar soil will give
uniform results ; but if part of the seed is
sown in one kind of soil and part in another,
the two crops are likely to differ. One
will show more advantage than the other.
Again, the increase in the crop on one farm
is most in the grain, and in another is most
in the straw. The increase in one crop may
be eighteen or twenty bushels to the acre,
and in another may be only five or six. In
these respects the results are not uniform,
and the reasons for these discrepancies are
yet to be discovered, and no doubt will be
discovered when there has been time for the
necessary investigations ; and then the want
of uniformity can be remedied. But the
result is uniform in this respect : that there
always is an increase in the crop that grows
from the electrified seed. The increase may
be in the number of grains in the ear, or in
the number of culms grown from each seed,
or in the length and stoutness and weight
of the straw ; but in one or other or all of

96 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

these respects the crop is increased. In that
respect the results are uniform.

In the fourth place, as already explained,
the effect upon the seed is not permanent.
In the course of time it passes away, so that
the seed will not show any benefit if it is
kept too long after it has been treated and
before it is sown. It is no use having
seed treated in the autumn for sowing in the
following spring. It must be sown within
a month from the time of treatment. But a
month is a sufficient margin, and few farmers
will want more in ordinary seasons.

Lastly, if the process is not properly
carried out, it will very probably fail to
show any increase in the resulting crop ;
and if the treatment is very faulty, the
grain may be damaged, and the crop will
then suffisr in consequence. This cannot
justly be considered a disadvantage of the
process itself. The process is a simple one,
and is no more difficult to carry out success-
fully than the process of dyeing a parcel
of yarn, or sterilising a surgical dressing,

DISADVANTAGES 97

and is much simpler than making a Stilton
cheese ; but, like all these processes, it is
not foolproof. It may be bungled, and it
is very likely to be bungled if it is conducted
by inexperienced or careless hands. It is
simple, but it requires vigilant attention,
proper conditions, and a certain skill that
is to be attained only by practice under a
skilled instructor. If these conditions are
not observed, the grain may be damaged,
and the process may fall into undeserved
discredit. In fact, it has fallen into un-
deserved discredit in certain quarters, in
consequence of faulty performance due to
want of experience and want of skill in the
performers ; but it cannot be too strongly
insisted upon that in every case in which
the result has been unsatisfactory the failure
has been traced either to a fault in the
method of performing the process, or to
undue delay in sowing the seed, or to differ-
ence in the conditions under which the
treated and the control crops were grown.
To this rule there has been no exception

7

98 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

whatever. Mistakes have been made. In
an entirely new process it is inevitable that
mistakes should be made ; and in certain
quarters the reputation' of the process has
suffered because early and experimental
trials, all of which could not be expected
to be successful, were taken for examples
of a matured and perfected process that
ought never to fail. The process is now
matured with respect to cereals, and with
them it does not fail ; but before it was
matured there were failures which were
then unaccountable, but have since been
explained.

CHAPTER VI

HORTICULTURAL SEEDS

The inventor of the Wolfryn electro-chemical
process took for the subject of his early ex-
periments the chief seeds used in agriculture.
The choice was natural, and was wise.
Agricultural crops are by far the most im-
portant crops, and the most abundant crops ;
and of agricultural crops, the three standard
cereals, wheat, oats, and barley, are by far
the most important. As the experiments
proceeded, the world was threatened with a
scarcity of food ; and if these crops could be
materially increased, much would be done
to relieve this scarcity. Moreover, the three
cereals are much alike ; they all belong to
the same natural order of plants, they are
easily procured in abundance, and they are

99

loo ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

grown upon a large scale almost everywhere
in these islands. For all these reasons,
cereals were chosen for the first subjects
of experiment.

The last consideration, the scale on which
they are grown, is especially important. An
acre is a small area in the eyes of an agri-
culturist, and a single experiment, in which
the yield of one acre is compared with the
yield of another, is to the practical farmer
of only trifling magnitude, and carries but
little weight ; but in an acre of wheat there
are between a million and a half and two
millions of wheat plants ; and what an ex-
periment conducted upon an acre of ground
gives, when compared with the yield of
another acre, is the average yield of at least
a million and a half of plants compared with
the average yield of another miUion and a
half. Experiments upon this scale cannot
be conducted in the laboratory ; experiments
on this scale are rare in the practice of ex-
perimentation ; and experiments in which
the average of such enormous numbers is

HORTICULTURAL SEEDS loi

taken must carry weight. Such numbers
completely eliminate the disturbing effects
of individual peculiarities in the seeds.

For all these good and sufficient reasons,
agricultural seeds, and especially the seeds of
cereals, received first attention, and horti-
cultural seeds were relegated to the second
place, and left over for subsequent ex-
perimentation ; but now that the proper
treatment of cereals has been sufficiently
ascertained to assure an increase in the
crop in every case in which the process
is properly conducted and the comparison
fairly made, the inventor is turning his
attention to horticultural seeds.

The field of experimentation opening out
in this direction is enormous and inex-
haustible. Horticultural seeds are twenty
times, perhaps fifty times, as numerous as
agricultural seeds, and are also very much
more diverse. They belong to a much
greater number of natural orders, and to
orders that are much more widely different,
and must engage the attention of many

I02 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

experimenters for many years. A beginning
has been made, however, and some excellent
results have been obtained ; but it must be
clearly understood that the electro-chemical
treatment of horticultural seeds is still in the
experimental stage, and will not be recom-
mended for general adoption for any one kind
of seed until practical certainty of success
with that kind of seed has been attained.

Meantime, the claims of agricultural seeds
are still urgent and still clamant. From all
parts of the world — from places as far distant
as New Mexico, North Borneo, Nyasaland,
South Africa, Trinidad, New Zealand, India,
Japan, and elsewhere — the inventor receives
urgent requests to explain the proper treat-
ment for rice, sorghum, flax, sugar-cane,
cotton, tobacco, and many other crops ; and
while horticultural seeds must be attended
to, the claims of agricultural crops must
take precedence. Manifestly, to settle the
proper treatment of all these seeds, and at
the same time to carry out the business
organisation of the process in this and other

HORTICULTURAL SEEDS 103

countries, and to attend to the ever-increas-
ing mass of inquiries and correspondence on
the subject, is beyond the power of any one
man, especially of a man approaching his
eightieth year. This being so, and since
the existing agricultural colleges display no
inclination to take the matter in hand, their
time being fully occupied, no doubt, with
other affairs, it is Mr Fry's intention to
establish, as soon as circumstances permit,
a thoroughly equipped laboratory, on a
sufficient area of ground, with a staff of
skilled and trained experimenters to carry
out investigations under his own eye, and
determine the optimum treatment for every
kind of seed.

No doubt, when this can be done, prin-
ciples will be established and rules laid down
that will materially shorten the time that
need be spent over any one kind of seed.
Indeed, from the experiments already made,
which are very numerous, principles are
beginning to emerge, and it is' possible to
begin the treatment of a new seed with

I04 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

some approximate guess as to the proper
time, the proper strength of solution, and so
forth ; and further experience will narrow
the limits within which the treatment may
be begun. But the problem with respect
to horticultural seeds is in its infancy, and,
while the inventor will welcome the co-
operation of gardeners in growing treated
seeds alongside of untreated seeds in the most
various conditions, it must be distinctly
understood that such trials are at present
purely experimental ; that failures are to be
looked for and expected ; and that the pro-
cess is not to be condemned and abandoned
because, with horticultural seeds, failures
occasionally occur. If every experiment
were successful at first trial, there would be
little need of experiment. The only safe
road to discovery is the road of trial and
error ; and it is out of repeated errors that
success at last emerges.

The conditions under which living things
grow and thrive are so immensely complex
that a result cannot be guaranteed with per-

HORTICULTURAL SEEDS 105

feet confidence in every case ; but every
farmer, every gardener, and every man of
common-sense will admit that if a cer-
tain treatment, compared with controls, is
followed in 80 per cent, of a large number
of trials by a certain result which does not
occur in the controls, that result is due to
that treatment. In the case of cereals, sub-
stantial increase in the crop has followed the
electro-chemical treatment in much more
than 80 per cent, of the cases in which it
has been fairly tried ; and when it is success-
ful in 80 per cent, of trials of any horticul-
tural seed, then, and not till then, it will be
recommended for general adoption for that
kind of seed. Premature publication of
individual and sporadic successes as evidence
of general success is much to be deprecated.
It leads to anticipations that may not be
fulfilled in other cases, and thus may throw
undeserved discredit on a valuable process.
When the inventor recommends the adop-
tion of the process for any particular kind
of seed, it may be relied upon to produce an

io6 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

increase of the crop in at least 80 per cent,
of cases in which that seed is sown ; but
even in these cases no specific amount or
proportion of increase can be guaranteed.
All that our present experience warrants
us in predicting is that the proportion of
increase is likely to range, on the average,
about 30 per cent.

CHAPTER VII

THE EXPLANATION

Of the remarkable effect that electrification
of seed has in increasing the vigour and
yield of the crop that grows from the seed
thus treated there can be no doubt, but by
what means this effect is brought about is
at present a matter of speculation. Several
hypotheses present themselves, and some at
least of these are susceptible of verification
by observation and experiment ; and, as the
matter is attracting much attention among
students of bio-chemistry and in botanical
laboratories, it is probable that before long
a good deal of light will be thrown upon it.

The facts are : —

I . That by electrification the seed is
altered in some way that causes it to grow

107

io8 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

more vigorously, and to yield a larger
growth.

2. That the effect on cereals is sometimes
to produce a greater yield of grain, some-
times to produce a greater yield of straw,
sometimes to have both of these effects ;
very rarely to increase the straw apparently
at some expense to the yield of grain ; less
rarely to increase the yield of grain at some
expense to the growth of straw ; and
frequently to increase the yield of both
grain and straw, but in different proportions
in different cases, although the treatment
was, as far as could be judged, the same in
all these cases.

3. That the effect is transitory, so that
if the sowing of the seed is delayed for more
than a month after the electrification, the
effect is diminished, and, if the sowing is
much delayed, may be wholly lost.

4. Some seeds, such as cereals, respond
readily to the treatment, and rarely fail to
show an increased yield in the subsequent
crop. Other seeds, such as Leguminosae,

THE EXPLANATION 109

appear to be refractory to the treatment,
and up to the present time have shown
sometimes little and sometimes no increase
in the resulting crop.

5. Even seed of the same kind, oats or
barley for instance, shows .very different
results in different cases, although the treat-
ment is, as far as can be judged, the same.
One crop yields a very large increase after
electrification, another parcel of similar seed
yields a very small increase.

These are the facts to be explained.
What is the explanation ? What hypotheses
suggest themselves as capable of explaining
all the facts ? For, however satisfactorily
an hypothesis may explain some of them,
it must be rejected unless it accounts for
them all.

The obvious explanation, which the ex-
perienced experimenter will be inclined to
regard with suspicion just because it is
obvious, is that the electrification adds to
the store of energy contained in the seed,
which, since it contains more energy, acts

no ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

more energetically. For a seed, like every
other living thing, contains, not only a
certain quantity of matter, but also a certain
quantity of energy animating the matter.
This is the difference between a live thing
and a dead thing. If a live seed is heated
to a certain temperature, it will be killed.
It will be to all outward seeming the same
as before. It will look the same and weigh
the same. It will contain the same quantity
of matter, and the matter will consist of
very much the same quantities of the same
elements in very much the same combina-
tions ; but if we sow this seed under even
the most favourable conditions, it will not
germinate. Instead of germinating, it will
decay. That is to say, instead of assimilat-
ing new matter and new energy, and building
up its material structure into new and more
elaborate combinations, it will fall to pieces,
and subside into less and less elaborate and
complicated structures, which lose their
cohesion, separate from one another, and
exist merely as chemical combinations and

THE EXPLANATION iii

no longer as an organised structure. These
chemical substances contain energy, it is
true, but only enough energy to hold them
together in those combinations. They do
not contain the additional charge of avail-
able energy that is capable of building them
up into more elaborate and complicated
structures. They are dead, and this is the
difference between life and death, between
living things and dead things. Dead things
contain only enough energy to keep them
as they are : hving things contain in addi-
tion enough energy to add to the complica-
tion of their structure, and to enable them
to absorb and assimilate from without both
matter and energy for this purpose.

Now, electricity is, from one aspect, a
mode of energy. If it is a mode of motion,
it is energy. If it is particulate, its par-
ticles are in motion, and so contain or convey
energy ; and in either case, if we pass elec-
tricity into a substance, we add to the energy
in that substance, and this energy is as it
were detached, free, and additional to that

112 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

previously contained in the substance. It is,
therefore, a plausible and inviting hypothesis
to suppose that the energy thus imparted to
the seed may reinforce and reinvigorate what
we may term, without committing ourselves
to any theory, the vital energy of the seed,
and so enable it to grow more vigorously
and bring forth fruit more abundantly. The
hypothesis is simple and attractive, but will
it cover all the facts ? Scarcely. It is diffi-
cult on this hypothesis to account for the
discrepancies of the results in different cases.
It is difficult to account for the increased
yield being sometimes in the grain and
sometimes in the straw. It is difficult to
account for the small effect the process has
upon Leguminosas. It is difficult to account
for the endurance of the effect for a month
or more, and for its disappearance after this
time is elapsed. Each of these effects may
no doubt be explained by straining the
hypothesis in this direction and in that, and
by adding subsidiary hypotheses ; but the
necessity of doing so at once throws doubt

THE EXPLANATION 113

upon the main hypothesis. It resembles on
a small scale the prodigious framework of
what is called Mendehsm, in which hypo-
thesis is piled on hypothesis, supposition on
supposition, and assumption on assumption,
until the mind reels under the accumulation.
Pelion is piled upon Ossa, and the two are
supported upon a slender stalk too fragile to
bear the weight, and the whole structure
collapses by reason of its top-heaviness.
We must look round for something more
plausible.

It is now well known that the whole
superficial crust of the earth swarms with
bacteria, and that some of these bacteria
have very great influence, for evil or for
good, upon the lives of higher organisms.
The bacilli of tuberculosis and anthrax, and
the vibrio of cholera, are cases in point.
Plants also have their parasitic bacteria, some
of which are destructive or deleterious to
the plant on which they are parasitic, and
others, such as the well-known azotobacter
and B. radicicola, are beneficial. Electricity

114 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

may have, and in fact is known to have, an
influence on the growth of bacteria, and it
is possible that it may stimulate and assist
the growth of the nitrifying bacteria, and
perhaps kill or inhibit the growth of those
that are inimical to the growth of the plant.
This is a plausible speculation, but it is only
a speculation, and has little support from
what is known ; neither does it fit in with all
the facts that are to be explained. Neither
azotobacter nor B. radicicola is known to
occur in seeds, nor is either of them para-
sitic upon cereals ; nor is it known that
either of them is stimulated into greater
activity by electricity. We are here in the
region of pure speculation, unsupported by
any groundwork of fact, and it is not worth
while to pursue researches in this direction
until all else fails.

Again, it is well known that plants of all
kinds are subject to the attacks of fungi, some
of which are very deadly in their effects.
Cereals, especially, suffer much from fungous
diseases. It is necessary to mention only the

THE EXPLANATION 115

smut, bunt, and rust of wheat, ergot of rye,
and mildew, which attacks all cereals and
many other plants as well. Smut, bunt, and
mildew undoubtedly infest the surface of the
seed grain, and may perhaps penetrate the
interior ; and consequently it is a recognised
and prevalent custom to spray seed corn with
a solution of sulphate of copper in order to
kill the adherent spores. It is evident that
the steeping of the grain in a solution of
some metallic salt, which is part of the
Wolfryn process, will tend to destroy the
spores on the surface of the grain, and that
the ions, which are driven into the seed by
the electric current, may destroy any spores
that may have penetrated into the interior of
the seed, and thus protect the plant against
funguous attacks ; but this is not what we
are in search of. There is no evidence that
the superior yield of the plants grown from
electrified seed is due to this freedom from
fungous attacks to which the unelectrified
plants are subject. The advantage is still
gained when both crops are free from any

ii6 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

disease. It is true that there is a certain
amount of evidence, not yet enough to
enunciate formally, that the electrifying
process does diminish the liability of plants
to be attacked by fungous diseases ; but
this would not account for the increase of
the crop over that of a crop that is free
from disease. We must seek some other
explanation.

The hypothesis that I suggest provision-
ally is rather more complicated than any of
the foregoing, but it has the merit that it
is not inconsistent with any of the known
facts, and does account for them all in a
fairly satisfactory manner without very much
aid from subsidiary and auxiliary hypotheses.
It will need a little more space for its state-
ment, and it must be admitted at once that
it is sadly in need of substantiation ; but it
is quite susceptible of being substantiated or
disproved by appropriate research, and this
is no small merit in an hypothesis.

Although the power of vitamine was
discovered in 1772 by Captain Cook, it is

THE EXPLANATION 117

fewer than twenty years since the name was
attached to the substance, and fewer years
still since a vitamine was isolated and made
visible separately from other things ; but by
this time everybody knows what vitamines
are, and has some notion of their properties.
They belong to a much larger class of sub-
stances, some of which occur in various
articles of food, and others are elaborated in
the animal body itself, but all have certain
properties in common. All of them are
necessary for the healthy balance of nutri-
tion of the body. If any one is absent, the
nutrition of the body fails or goes wrong
in a certain definite way, depending on the
particular substance that is absent from the
blood. If one is absent, the gums swell,
become spongy, and bleed, the nutrition of
the body fails in certain ways, and the person
dies. If another is absent, the body becomes
dropsical, the nerves fail to perform their
functions, the heart fails, and the person dies.
If yet another is absent, the skin atrophies,
the hair falls out, the mind decays, the

ri8 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

person becomes demented, and at length
dies. If another substance is absent, the
proper characters of sex are not assumed,
and the person remains for life in the
neutral sexual condition of childhood. If
a male, he grows no beard, and his voice
retains its thin, piping, childish pitch ; if
a female, the hips remain narrow and the
breasts never develop. Among these sub-
stances are some which regulate growth
in infancy and childhood. If one of these
substances is absent, the growth of different
parts of the body is disproportionate.
Certain parts of the body — the brain, for
instance — remain undeveloped, and never
progress beyond an early stage. If another
is absent, the whole body is dwarfed, the
person never grows up, but remains for life
with the body of an infant. Some of these
substances are, as I have said, elaborated in
the body itself, usually in certain special
organs, which have no other function ; others
of them are provided by the food, that is,
by certain articles of food ; but all have in

THE EXPLANATION 119

common the property that their powers are
exerted by almost incredibly small quantities.
A man of 150 lbs. in weight is kept in
robust health by two or three grains per
diem of one of these substances. If these
two or three grains are wanting, he sickens
and dies : if they are provided, he is pre-
served in vigorous life. A pound contains
7000 grains, so that one or two millionth
parts of his body-weight of one of these
vitamines is enough to sustain a man in
robust health : the continued absence of
these one or two millionths of his weight
is fatal.

Nor is it only animals that depend for
their lives and their growth upon the in-
corporation into their bodies of extremely
minute quantities of very complex substances.
Plants also have their vitamines, which are
called, not vitamines, but auximones ; and, as
in the case of animals, these accessory food-
substances have a profound influence upon
the growth of the plant. We may provide
an animal with what appears to be a physio-

I20 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

logically perfect diet, containing in ample
quantity and in due proportion all the pro-
tein, carbohydrate, fat, and salts that are
necessary to its life and growth ; but if
we do not provide the necessary vitamines,
the animal will neither grow nor live. And
similarly, we may provide a plant in ample
quantity and due proportion with all the
necessary potash, phosphates, nitrogen, and
salts that are required for its growth and
nourishment ; but if it has not its necessary
quantity of auximones, it will not thrive,
and presumably, if we could deprive it of
its auximones, it would not live.

The extraordinary results that have been
attained by Professor Bottomley by the use
of bacterised peat appear to be owing, with-
out doubt, to the additional supply of auxi-
mones that his bacterised peat supplies to
the plants ; and by whatever means we could
increase the supply of auximones, by those
means we could increase the vigour of the
plant and the abundance of its products.
The seed of every plant contains a store of

THE EXPLANATION 121

nourishment for the supply of the seedHng
until it can gather its nourishment from the
soil or the air in which it grows. Some
seeds are of microscopic dimensions, and
contain but little nourishment ; others, such
as the broad bean, and still more the cocoa-
nut, are of considerable size, and contain
much ; but all contain some. And as the
milk of mammals is a perfect physiological
food, containing all the ingredients, includ-
ing the vitamines, necessary for the nourish-
ment, growth, and development of the infant
mammal, so the albumen of the seed con-
tains all the nourishment, including the
auximones, necessary for the nourishment,
growth, and development of the seedling
plant.

We have seen that the function of one
of the animal vitamines — it is not called
a vitamine, for it is produced within the
animal body, and therefore receives another
name — is to enable the animal to attain the
dimension proper to its species and race. If
this particular vitamine is deficient, the

122 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

animal, like Peter Pan, never grows up, but
remains throughout its life of infantile stature
and development. If this particular vita-
mine is in excess, the animal grows too
much, and develops into a giant. Plants as
well as animals have their vitamines, and one
of these vitamines regulates the stature of
the plant. If it is deficient, the plant never
grows up. It remains, if not infantile, yet
dwarfed ; and dwarfing is one of the most
frequent varieties of very many species and
races of plants. On the other hand, if we
could supply the plant with an extra quantity
of this particular vitamine or auximone,
there is no reason to doubt that we could
produce in it an earlier and more luxurious
development.

We may pursue this line of speculation a
little farther. It is established beyond doubt
that there is one substance that conduces to
the attainment by animals of mere size, and
another that regulates the time and degree
of development, especially of sexual develop-
ment, so that, when this latter vitamine is

THE EXPLANATION 123

wanting, sexual differentiation never takes
place, and the animal remains permanently
in the neutral state of childhood. On the
other hand, cases sometimes occur in which
this vitamine is produced in excess or pre-
maturely, and then the animal undergoes
premature sexual development, so that the
boy of seven or eight grows a beard and his
voice deepens into an unnatural bass, and the
girl at even an earlier age attains puberty
and becomes a premature woman. That
wide variations occur in animals in fruitful-
ness and other sexual properties, and that
these variations have little correlation with
variations in size and in development in
other respects, is well known.

Now, I think it is fair to suppose that an
analogous state of things obtains in plants
also. Like animals, plants increase at first
solely in size and in structural complexity.
Like animals, plants, when a certain size
and structural complexity are attained, be-
come sexually complete and reproduce their
kind. Like animals, plants occasionally

124 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

remain dwarfed in stature, occasionally at-
tain premature sexual completion, and vary
much in fertility and in other sexual char-
acters, such as the size, colouring, double-
ness, and so forth of their flowers. It is
therefore fair to suppose that, as in animals,
so in plants, development in size and vigour
may be regulated by one vitamine, and de-
velopment in sexual characters by another.
If we grant this, we have an explanation of
the undoubted fact that one apple tree runs
chiefly to wood, while another produces fruit
several years earlier, and much more abun-
dantly. We then see why one crop of corn
runs chiefly to straw, while another with less
luxuriant growth produces more grain.

These vitamines, auximones, or whatever
we please to call them, are extremely com-
plex bodies ; but that they have a more or
less definite chemical constitution is shown
by the fact that they can be isolated by
chemical processes and obtained in crystal-
line form. They are also closely allied in
chemical constitution ; and the experience

THE EXPLANATION 125

of chemists is that, in building up in the
laboratory complex bodies of very similar
chemical constitution, differing only by an
atom of this or an atom of that, or having
the same number of atoms differently ar-
ranged, the processes by which these dif-
ferent bodies are formed are closely similar,
and sometimes result in a mixture of two or
more similar bodies. Moreover, it is a
commonplace of laboratory knowledge that
electricity has a powerful effect in disturbing
and altering chemical combinations.

Taking all these facts together, I build
upon them the following hypothesis. The
action of electricity upon a seed is to modify
the chemical constitution of certain con-
stituents of what is called the albumen of
the seed. Among these constituents are
the auximones necessary to the growth and
development of the plant, and these auxi-
mones differ but slightly from one another
and from other constituents of the albumen,
so that under certain conditions the auxi-
mones are constituted out of the albumen.

126 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

The effect of the electricity is, as I take it,
so to act upon the albumen as to produce
more of the auximones. These, though
they differ profoundly in their effect upon
the plant, are closely alike in their chemical
constitution, so that some very trifling dif-
ference in the intensity or duration of the
electric current, or perhaps in the strength
of the saline solution in which the seed is
steeped, may determine whether the increase
is in the auximone that determines growth
or in that which determines fertility. If
the first is increased, the result will be a
stronger and taller plant, with greater tiller-
ing and more sturdy straw. If the other
auximone is increased, the result will be
greater fertility, and a more copious pro-
duction of seed.

Now let us apply this hypothesis to the
facts and see if they are consistent with it.
We have already seen that it is consistent
with the facts that the growth of the plant
is more vigorous and that it produces more
grain when the seed has been electrified,

THE EXPLANATION 127

and it is consistent with the fact that the
increase is sometimes in the tillering and in
the length and sturdiness of the straw, and
sometimes in the yield of grain ; sometimes
in both, and sometimes in one at the expense
of the other. All these facts fit in very
well with the hypothesis.

The next fact to be accounted for is that
the effect of electrification upon the seed is
transitory. This is quite consistent with
the other hypotheses, and is consistent with
this also ; for these auximones are bodies of
extremely complicated chemical constitution
— so complicated that their true nature and
chemical structure have hot yet been deter-
mined. The more complicated the chemical
structure of a substance, the more unstable
it is, other things being equal, and the more
readily its constitution is altered ; the more
readily it parts with an atom here and a
molecule there, and changes into something
else. Now, one of the conditions most
favourable to the decomposition of all or-
ganic bodies is the presence of moisture, and

128 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

it is therefore significant that, if we wish
to preserve the change, whatever it is, that
is produced in the seed by electricity, we
must keep the seed dry. Damp seed reverts
to its pre-electrified condition more rapidly
than dry seed. The fact that the effect is
transient fits the hypothesis, therefore,
very well.

The fourth fact to be accounted for is
that some seeds, such as those of cereals,
respond readily to the electrical treatment,
and show increases, sometimes very great
increases, in the crops they produce, while
upon other seeds, such as Leguminosae, little
or no effect has yet been produced. In
explanation of this, it is certain that the
chemical constitution of the "albumen" of
cereals is widely different from that of the
" albumen " of leguminous seeds. The
latter, for instance, contain much more
protein, and the protein they contain is very
different from the gluten of wheat or the
protein of barley or oats. But there is
another and more significant difference. Of

THE EXPLANATION 129

all plants that have been tested, leguminous

plants contain the largest proportion of

auximone; This auximone is distributed

throughout the plant, and is elaborated by

the plant in the course of its growth. The

same thing occurs in other plants, but, as

it would appear, they do not need so much

as the highly organised leguminous plants,

and therefore do not produce as much.

From this it seems to follow that a small

addition to the native auximone — and the

amount produced in the seed can be but

small — would produce less effect upon a

leguminous plant, which already contains

much, than upon a plant of a different kind

that contains but little. Here again the

hypothesis seems to be consistent with the

fact of observation.

Lastly, the effect of the electric treatment,
even when carried out in the same way
upon the same kind of seed, varies within
very wide limits, increasing sometimes the
straw, sometimes the grain, and the increase
being sometimes as little as 4 or 5 per cent.,

9

I30 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

and sometimes as much as 60 or 70 per
cent. As to this, there are two things to be
said. In the first place, it has been found
in experience that different seeds, even of
closely allied family, require very different
lengths of treatment to produce the best
effects. Barley, for instance, requires twice
as long as oats. To people who have no
experience of agriculture, wheat is wheat,
barley is barley, and oats are oats ; but
agriculturists and seed merchants know that
there are quite 150 different kinds of wheat
in cultivation, all differing from one another
in some more or less important respect ; and
if wheat and barley take, as they do, such
very different lengths of treatment to pro-
duce the best effect, it is highly probable
that different kinds of wheat require different
lengths of treatment — lengths that do not
differ as widely as that of barley does from
that of wheat, but still lengths that are
material.

Again, it is known to millers that dif-
ferent varieties of wheat have very different

THE EXPLANATION 131

physical constitutions, behave very differently
in the mill, and yield their products in
different proportions and of different quali-
ties. These physical peculiarities are accom-
panied, and to some extent conditioned, by
chemical peculiarities, and therefore it is
not to be expected that the same electrical
treatment will produce the same effect upon
them all, especially when we consider how
slight the differences between many of the
different chemical constituents of the seed
are. On these grounds, we should expect
that the effects of the electrical treatment of
seed would be diverse, and especially so if
the effect is of the nature of a chemical
change. There is nothing inconsistent with
the hypothesis, therefore, in the diversity of
effect that electricity produces on different
samples of seed that are called by the same
name. It is quite likely, moreover, that
the effect may vary according to the physical
condition of the seed at the time of treat-
ment, and according to the physical condi-
tions under which it has been kept. The

132 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

chemical changes that take place in seeds
are subtle and elusive, and very little is
known of them ; but it may be presumed
with some confidence that one sample of
seed will differ in chemical constitution, and
therefore in its chemical reactions, from
another sample grown in the same field at
the same time, if, in the meantime, they
have been stored under different conditions
of dryness, temperature, and perhaps other
respects. Even the temperature of the bath
in which the electrification takes place may
very likely modify the effect of the elec-
tricity upon the chemical constitution of the
complex substance that goes under the name
of albumen. There is nothing, therefore,
in the diversified effect of the electricity
upon the seed that is inconsistent with the
hypothesis here advanced, and upon the
whole it fits the facts fairly well, and better
than any other that has yet been suggested.

Recently, a book that throws a flood of
light on electro-physiology has been pub-
lished by Mr Baines, an accomplished elec-

THE EXPLANATION 133

trician. He has proved by many thousands
of experiments, conducted with the most
sensitive instruments that have yet been
invented, that every plant, and every part
of a plant, not only has electric capacity,
but contains an electric charge. It is, in
short, a charged electric cell ; and he has
shown that this is as true of the seed as of
every other distinct part of the plant. It
seems that the proper performance of the
function of each part of the plant is con-
nected with the possession of this charge of
electricity ; and it requires no great effort
of reasoning to see that, if this is so, the
greater the electric charge, the more vigor-
ously will the function be performed. One
of Mr Baines' experiments is a very remark-
able confirmation of those of Mr Fry. Mr
Baines cooked two potatoes. One he boiled
for fifteen minutes, and the other he baked
for the same length of time. After this
treatment, one would naturally suppose that
the potatoes were dead, and no gardener in
his senses would expect them to show any

134 ELECTRIFICATION OF SEEDS

sign of life. Nor would they have shown
any sign of life if Mr Baines had left them
alone ; but instead of leaving them alone he
passed into them for twenty-four hours a
feeble current of electricity, and thereafter
both the potatoes sprouted in a remarkable
manner. It was remarkable that they should
sprout at all, and that they did so is striking
evidence of the efficacy of Mr Fry's system.
After this, objections to the electrification
of seeds on the ground that a priori it is not
likely to improve the vigour of germination
are out of court. It is true that a potato
is not a seed, but it acts the part of a seed
in farming operations ; and Mr Fry has
found that the electrification of seeds and of
" seed " potatoes may be carried on on the
same lines and will produce similar efFects.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITATN BY NEILL AND CO.. LTD., EOINBDRGU.