Hydroponics It seems that the curious art named hydroponics is
being encouraged by the results of the Pacific war! A good many English amateurs have been experimenting with it, and one at any rate of our universities- Reading—but the real enthusiasts are found on the Pacific. The art consists in growing food crops in a " nutrient solution " instead of in the earth ; and Californian experimenters boast of trebling the yield, since mixed plants can be grown (as in the French maraicher system) in very close proximity and, as Clough wrote, " great is juxtaposition." It is pointed out that a good 8o per cent. of the surface of this globe is without humus and therefore cannot grow crops, but hydroponics enable the desert to flourish as the rose since some of the best results have been secured by trickling the nutrient solutions into sand. Equipped with proper apparatus an else barren sandy island may be made self-supporting. It is all very interesting, but probably not well adapted to England, as it seems to need more sunshine than the English average. Some day, perhaps—who knows ?—it may be associated with electric light, already used for persuading hens to eat more and lay more, as electric warmth is being practically used for germinating seeds under cloches. It was the deficiency of sunlight that brought to naught, or at any rate to little, many of the first attempts by amateurs to practise the so-called French gardening in England.
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