Plant Pills

Plants have nothing to do but eat and grow, yet to them has been given a synthetic food substitute. A can of water, a food pill, and care will make roses bloom at Christmas if started in September. The cuttings are placed in the water, the pill added, the water kept up to the mark, and in a few weeks rootlets appear; in a few months, roses. Sweetpeas, phlox, snapdragons, asters, other annuals respond to slightly different treatment.

The seed is planted on a thin slice of cork floating in the solution; the floats are kept damp until tiny rootlets come crawling down into the water, when the plant can take care of itself. Six foot sweet peas, tall dahlias fed on food pills have bloomed profusely in winter at room temperatures.

Dr. William Frederick Gericke, associate plant physiologist at the University of California, is the biological chef who concocted the food pill. It is about the size of a pigeon's egg, is composed principally of nitrogen, phosphorus, iron salts. The definite recipe is still a secret; each plant requires different proportions of ingredients and many formulas remain still to be worked out. Chef Gericke plans to tell U. S. agricultural colleges and departments about the food pill when he returns from lecturing in England, France, Germany, Italy on his experiments. Plant lovers may soon be able to buy the pills when they buy seeds.