Evening star., 1916-01-09
Making Potash
From Cement Dust.

Making Potash cussed by vari-
From Cement Dust. ous asencies OF
with view to finding a solution for
the country's fertilizer problems. Off
cials of the bureau of mines are in
terested in the appearance of potash as
by-product from the manufacture of
portland cement. The possibilities of
securing potash from the new source
is made all the more interesting by the
fact that the substance has been gotten
IN cement plants as result of efforts
to avoid harming orchards and crops
IN the vicinity, and by the additional
fact that the apparatus by which the
recovery is effected is the invention OF
F. G. Cottrell. now engaged in chemical
Investigations for the bureau of mines
thousands of tons of dust are driven
into the air from the stacks of cement
plants all over the country, and, set
Ting on vegetation, cause numerous
trouble and payment of damages a
large cement plant in the west bought
up nearly million dollars worth of
adjacent land and found that it's dis
charged dust still noated beyond its
property limits and continued to cause
damage. 1t then installed apparatus
which captures the dust particles by
electrical attraction. and now piles up
in bins each day approximately 100
spread over the countryside.
In catching the ordinary clay and
lime dust that goes into the manufac-
ture of cement the electrical current
also catches the valuable potash that
has been unlocked from the raw mate
rails by heat. The potash forms such
a substantial part of the dust that the
whole mixture, where the electrical re-
covery process has been installed, sells
readily as it is caught for fertilizer
uses for almost as good a price as the
finished cement. When the dust is re-
heated in special kiln and the cleo
trical fingers again snatch all that they
can from the passing gases. a high con-
centrate of the potash is secured, which
is still more valuable. How soon the
chief producers of cement can be de-
pended on to save the potash they are
now sending up their chmneys is
question that government metallurgfsts
and chemists cannot answer; but an
idea of what such saving would mean
to the United States in national produc-
ton of potash, now produced here in
only negligible quantities. is given by
the figures of the geological survey.
which place the American output of
portland cement in the United States
The individualism that has marked
the farmer of the east and south, who
has preferred to fail,
IN. .1nero finn if necessary, accord
ing to his own opin-
IN Farming. ions. rather than to
CO. operate with his neighbors in uni
form methods. has been lost almost au-
tomatically by easterners and south
erners who have gone west. Especially
mon action has been apparent if mar
kets thousands of miles away were to
be controlled, and. as result, strong
CO. operative associations have sprung
up. Now the Department of Agricul-
ture has recognized the wisdom of such
by issuing bulletin
pointing out that cotton growing, at
least in irrigated regions, cannot be
carried on to best advantage on an in
dividualistic basis, but requires COM
munity action.
1t is pointed out that in such COM
munity action bankers, cotton buyers,
ginners and manufacturers. as well as
bilized, dependable crop can be pro-
duced. The government has demon
strated, for instance. the most suitable
and most profitable of known va
reties of cotton that can be grown in
the Imperial valley of California, but
only $50 of the 500 cotton growers of
the region have adopted it, with the re-
suit that full possibilities cannot yet
be realized. Even with this condition,
however, the Department of Agricul-
ture points out that the $50 growers
who have adopted the standard va
riety. by organizing, have greatly bet
tered conditions, and, by common sup
port of ginners and by the insuring of
a certain supply to buyers and manu-
facturers. have placed themselves on
a much better basis than unorganized
producers of their own and other COM
munities.