INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY’
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Chemists as Laymen T H E specialist sometimes wonders how certain elementary discussions can find a place in the crowded journals of the day, but he forgets that what is elementary to him may not be so elementary to many of his fellow workers. One of the ideas upon which the Institute of Chemistry of the AMERICANCHEMICAL SOCIETYis based is that chemistry in many of its ramifications must be interpreted to other chemists almost as much as to the intelligent layman. When the specialist in one line speaks to specialists in other lines, he frequently finds it necessary to make his explanation as simple as possible. The man whose classroom days belonged to an earlier generation must be served and to some of these successful men the new chemistry is something of a new science. So when you find in the columns of this and other technical journals material which seems of small importance to you, remember there are others who may not have had your experience or background but who nevertheless are sufficiently interested in your subject to wish new information, if it can be quickly and easily assimilated.
Paper in Agriculture
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HEN the manager of a sugar plantation in Hawaii decided to fight weeds by covering the field with a heavy
waterproof paper through which the bayonet-like tips of the growing cane would penetrate and, when later, a similar paper was spread with great gain between rows of pineapple, little thought was given to the application of this process to American agriculture. I n a recent meeting, however, a member of the Department of Agriculture reported results from various garden crops which may be full of significance. Following three years of research, it was found that all but one of the ordinary garden crops responded with a heavily increased yield when all unoccupied soil spaces were covered with the paper. During the 1927 season results varied from 11 per cent with garden peas to 516 per cent with spinach, between which extremes the crop of lettuce more than doubled, green corn trebled, and potatoes almost quadrupled. The paper serves to increase the soil temperature, reduces the loss of moisture, smothers weed growth, and modifies the distribution of water. On such an experimental scale it was difficult t o obtain all the economic factors which must be known before papermulching on a large scale can be recommended to truck gardeners and farmers. It does not seem impossible, however, that the use of such paper may contribute greatly toward increased production on fewer acres-one way of assisting agriculture through decreasing costs by the simple method of increasing returns per unit of labor and land employed.
Endowed Association Research UR belief in the efficacy of research conducted by trade associations as a defensive and, indeed, offensive weapon in the new competition has frequently been voiced. Just as there is a variance in the research of individual industries, so there are various kinds and degrees of trade association research. On the whole it has been satisfactory and encouraging. At times it has almost failed for a variety of causes, such as internal politics, the unfortunate choice either of director or of problems, or the lack of appreciation on the part of the membership that the time factor always looms large in a research program.
Vol. 20, No. 2
The wise industry engaged cooperatively upon research, service, and development work eliminates as many of these difficulties as possible. The inability of certain members of a group to apply a t once to their own problems the data secured in the laboratory sometimes leads to discouragement and the withdrawal of support. Even the best managed and directed laboratory may approach financial starvation in times of economic stress. The endowment for the research laboratory of an association gives a t once a permanence which, in itself, renders ineffective causes which might otherwise wreck the whole program. We have long been interested in the determination of the Tanners’ Council of the United States of America to introduce into their industry the services of science, potentially great and already valued by many individual producers of leather. A few years ago a research laboratory was established at the University of Cincinnati, and the results achieved seem to the leaders of the industry of such fundamental value as to make them determined to put the laboratory upon a permanent foundation, independent of trade fluctuations and, indeed, of the life of the association itself. The laboratory has consequently become incorporated and a group of manufacturers is engaged in raising an endowment, the income of which will be devoted to research. There are many ways of supporting trade association research, each perhaps best suited to the industry represented, but where security is desired the independent establishment of the laboratory upon an adequate foundation seems to offer the best answer.
Funds for Textile Research EWS comes to us that the principal difficulties in the way of utilizing funds belonging to the Textile Alliance, Inc., have disappeared and that only a few unimportant questions between the Alliance and the Government remain to be settled. It may be remembered that the Textile Alliance, Inc., acted as a quasi-governmental agency in the importation of dyes and other essential products for the textile trade after the United States entered the war. In the course of its dyestuff operations a fund of nearly two million dollars was accumulated which, under an agreement with the State Department, was to be devoted to scientsc research and education. Later some difficulties arose in the course of which the Treasury Department laid claim to about one and a quarter millions of the fund under the income tax and excess profits tax law. A recent decision annuls this tax claim and now, after the loss of a number of years during which the income from this fund might have been helping the textile industry through research, attention must soon be given to this important question. Several years have passed since we actively endeavored to interest those responsible for the use of the fund as a nucleus for a textile research institute. At that time some of the officials of the Alliance were inclined to think that the fund should be allocated in different states, somewhat in proportion to the underwriting which the members of the Alliance had supplied and which they had never been called upon to pay. There are doubtless many who still feel that the way to derive the greatest benefit from this fund for the industry which really created it would be to devote it to existing research problems. We differ strongly with this feeling, for we are convinced that notwithstanding the effect of recent depression in the textile trade, awakening its leaders to the potentialities of science, there is still no prospect of the industry itself setting up such an institute as it sorely needs unless some such
