Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 September 1881 — A Wonderful Claim for the Electric Light. [ARTICLE]

A Wonderful Claim for the Electric Light.

Tne New York Worl’d London cable dispatch says: « Dr. C. W. Sieman, of London, claims to have discovered that vegetation flourishes under electric light as under solar, producing cblorophyble, and bringing flowers and fruits into bloom and ripeness. He experimented all last winter with a six-horse power engine connected with bls lamps of about 4,000 candle power each. One of these was placed inside a glass house of 2 318 cubic feet capacity, and the other was suspended at a height of twelve or fourteen feet above some sunk greenhouses. The experiments lasted from October to May last. The first trials were not very satisfactory, and the fact being attributed to the excessive glare . of the lamps, equivalents of clouds were made by jets of steam, and the rays were further intercepted by thin sheets of glass, some white and others colored, and the effects varying with the tint of the medium. The most vigorous growth was where the glass was white, next the yellow, and after that the red and blue, which produced only lanky growth. The cost ol the precess is only twelve cents a night for a light of 5,000 candles, and the doctor is so well satisfied that he hopes to establish the day growth of vegetables by adding electric forces to those .of the sun. It is a great pity that his machinery could not have been in working order during our present hot and dry season, which has proved so detrimental to vegetables and fruits.