Mollison's third world endless ni- trogen fertilizer supply system." You will need a sand box, with a trickle-in system of water, and a couple of sub- surface barriers to make the water dodge about. Fill the box with white sand and about a quarter ounce of ti- tanium oxide (a common paint pig- ment). In the presence of sunlight, ti- tanium oxide catalyzes atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia, endlessly. You don't use up any sand or titanium ox- ide in this reaction. It is a catalytic reaction. Ammonia is highly water soluble. You run this ammonia solution off and cork the system up again. You don't run it continuously, because you don't want an algae buildup in the sand. You just flush out the system with water. Water your garden with it. Endless nitrogen fertilizer. If you have a situation where you want to plant in sand dunes, use a pound or two of titanium oxide. You will quickly establish plants in the sand, because nitrogen is continually produced after a rain. This solution is carried down into the sand. If you are going to lay down a clover patch on a sand dune, this is how you do it. What I am saying is that every- where around us, in the natural condi- tion, these factories are working. That black sand has been cooking and dehydrating materials for ages. Just get a fish, split it, put it between two banana leaves, put it out there on the beach. Dehydrated fish. No flies. You can cook in it. That's better than your $3,000 metal collectors. Those things are applicable everywhere. Good per- maculture technology. You are asking me whether people use tita- nium oxide to create this reaction? No, they don't. They just haven't thought of it. In chemi- cal abstracts, around 1977, a researcher noted this, and then went to a discussion of the whole atmospheric circulation. One of the mysteries of the atmos- phere is that it has an excess of ammonia. They have never ac- counted for it. When he considered the amount of dunes and deserts in the world, he said, "This is it!" Where do we get titanic oxide from? Sands. So he calculated it. Three acres of desert under this system would supply as much as a commercial fertilizer plant. But we are not really interested in three acres of desert. We are inter- ested in three square feet in some peasant's garden in Guatemala, or somewhere else. I obtained a bottle of titanium oxide for our village. I never got any more of it. You can buy it by the pound if you want to. It is a com- mon filler in white paint, after they got rid of lead. In the deserts, his ni- trogen evaporates into the atmos- phere. That's why it is there. Rain oc- casionally carries it down. That's why deserts grow plants. That's why you can start into a system in a desert without necessarily starting off with nitrogen fixing plants.

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