“The secret of this, in Prus­si­an pro­fess­or­i­al lan­guage, is car­bon fer­til­iz­a­tion of crops; in ordin­ary lan­guage it is the diver­sion into and dis­tri­bu­tion among grow­ing plants of car­bon­ic-acid gas, the CO2 of school books, a gas fatal to human beings and anim­als in very mod­er­ate quant­it­ies, but bene­fi­cial and indis­pens­able to plant life. Through the applic­a­tion of adequate doses of this pois­on gas wheat ears are doubled in weight and size; rye, which in the Ger­man’s daily bread plays a great­er role than wheat, is equally increased; and on impov­er­ished soil rise pota­toes, cab­bages, peas, toma­toes and fruits sur­pass­ing the prize pro­duc­tions of mod­el farms. From red cur­rants to pump­kins no fruit has been dis­covered that can­not be pois­on-gassed into extra size and nutri­tious­ness. And all this magic, which will revo­lu­tion­ize agri­cul­ture and ulti­mately the trade of the world, will be achieved at a very mod­er­ate cap­it­al expendit­ure, and at prac­tic­ally no oper­at­ing cost at all.” Continue reading →

“All experiments so far made go to show that fertilizing the air by means of carbonic acid gas [CO2] is a much more efficient process than even an increased fertilization of the ground…” Continue reading →