The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1914-09-10
How to Utilize Potash Now in American Soil

How to Utilize American Potash.
or How to Do Without German Pot
ash During the War, is I pamphlet
by J. S. Brogdon, of Atlanta. Ca,
an analytic chemist, who is secre-
tary of the Georgia section of the
American Chemical Society and also
Of the chemical industries commit
tee of the Georgia Chamber of Com
merce, and is reprint from the At
lanta Constitution of Aug. 25. We
give the text in full, judging it's
suggestions to be of great value in
the emergency created by tn pres
ent war in Europe.
The fact that potash salts when
applied as a fertilizer to the soil
l.ye profitable increase of crops is
beyond question. The fact now
confronts the manufacturers of
commercial fertilizers and the farm
ers that the only source of supply of
potash has been cut off by the Eu-
ropean war. Only a small percen-
tage of the potash requirements for
the coming season are ON hand and
it is not likely that more can be
imported, as Germany has a world
monopoly on this material.
| Since the potash famine exists
and must be met, the writer begs to
offer a chemical means OF utilizing
such potash as we now have that is
useless.
We have plenty of potash in
America if We will only put to use.
,, DR.. Soule's statement
DR.. Andrew NJ. Soule, the presi-
dent Of the Georgia State College of
Agriculture, is supported by all the
authorities of all the experiment
stations when he said before the
National Fertilizer convention at
Atlantic City that good normal soil
of the United States contains 1000
to 10000 pounds of potash to the
acre. The most barren soil has as
much as 1000 pounds of potash per
acre in the first few top inches.
This potash is locked up, chemical
ly, so tightly that the plant cannot
feed upon it. There is a key to this
lock which works easily it You only
know how to use It,,
Dr.. A. d. Hall, director Of the
we'll known English experiment sta
tion at Rothamsted, said IN his
book. The Soil (page 219): "These
show that as much as half of the
additions of soluable potash salts
applied to the land during the past
fifty years are retained chiefly by
the surface soil.
Much or the German potash that
has been applied to the American
soil is still there. The writer is
convinced that there has been a wo-
full waste Of potash salts. About for
ty pounds of potash are required to
grow bale of cotton, and some of
this is returned to the land in the |
leaves and stalks.
The phosphoric acid of phosphate |
rock can be made into available acid
phosphate for plants by treating 1t
with sulphuric acid. Is 1t not just
as reasonable to believe that the
potash in the soil minerals can be
made available by mineral means?
These potash minerals o. the soil
are in a very finely divided condi-
ton; many are not any Jaeger than
the point Of a needle. They are not
soluble in soil water. This is the
great problem - to render these
small particles of potash minerals
then the potash can be alb
sorbed by the weakest plant.
An Exact Science
Chemistry is an exact science,
and it is positively known and def
litely stated by the most eminent
chemists of the world, that when
inely ground limestone comes in
contact with the potash minerals in fl
~