The Effects of Radio-Active Ores and Residues on Plant Life #268300

The great value of Radium in the successful treatment of certain forms of human disease having been established, it had been freely suggested that its remarkable properties might prove beneficial to plant life. Further, a report reached me that in Cornwall some very fine crops had been obtained from poor garden ground, as the result of dressing the land with soil which had been removed from a neighbouring Radium mine. In order to gain more definite particulars I visited the district in question, but as the incident had occurred a year or so previously I was unable to examine the results. The information I gathered, however, convinced me of the desirability of undertaking, in the interests of scientific research, a series of controlled experiments on a comprehensive scale.