The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1916-07-26

A
iphuric acid to the higher level or price
Tor the phosphates: proving an easy
and ready marketable product, all
sold at the highest priced ingredients,
value. in the content OF the acid phoss
plate when the truth Of the matter
is: the planter or farmer who buys
tive tons OF acid phosphate gets only
one ton Of plant food-for no one
with an honest knowledge of even
the rudiments of elementary chemis-
try of soil analysis can or will
claim any fertilizing or crop-produc-
ing virtues as being in sulphuric
acid, or in the oil of vitriol-one of
the most corrosive of all OF the
forces in nature and in truth it is an
absolute deterrent to any and every
plant life.
In 1746 Roebuck perfected a new
method or plan, differing materially
from the Valentine original modus-
operandi, of producing nitric acid,
and even this latter has been bet
tered by what is known as the Plati-
mum of contact method"-but no
honest, fair-minded experientate and
investigator has ever claimed any
plant-food properties for sulphuric
acid and thus why the reason to buy
and pay for and put it in any form on
soils for the increase in crops?
While it is a fact that calculated
T, phosphates are Immediately soluble
because of the acids affinity for water,
and the further supreme oxidizing
forces nthe acid Of itself, planter
may get to a degree quicker phos-
Lpheric action and. influences on his
crops. The question ask itself: why
pay say $500 for two tons Of acid
phosphate to get one ton of phosphate
when you can with the same SIG buy
two full tons of pulverized unacid-
ulated phosphates, and get the full
crop-producing results Of the two
tons that is now and has been gradu-
ally and naturally soluble under the
physical chemical reaction Of plant
roots and in the exact quantity 1t de-
mands of the plant, and its ready and
natural ability to digest and to assim-
ilate the phosphates in the soil. As
an evidence Of the good faith of some
chemists, | recite this incident: Sew
eral years ago l noticed at a point
where large quantity Of pulverized
phosphates had been left exposed and
mixed with surface soil q most pro-
ldigious growth of briars, vines, weeds
and grasses. took sample of the
deposit and gave portion of the
same to a banker friend of mine.
He sent it to states chemist who
wrote the banker: ut, the sample, is
an impure, low kaolin-of no value"
| gave it to so capable and honor
ably, dependable a chemist as DR..
f. e. Schriebers Of ocala part of
that identical sample. He told me:
this is a most excellent fertilizer
| filler worth about seven dollars to the
ton at the NINE"
gave another portion to my
friend Mr.. C. w. Thomas, president
of the button Bank at Gainesville. /
do not know what he did in the prem
ises. My banker friend, Mr.. G. w.
Deem, had chemical analysis made
of part of the sample taken from
the same exposed deposit and his
chemist found it contained 60 per
cent. and up B. p. l.. although it had
been mixed by overflow with the
nearby swamp-muck after it had been
pulverized and thrown out. The most
stupendous growth of briars, careless
and smart weeds and grasses in Flor
Ida are now growing on these dump
piles of muck and pulverized phos.
Ephates mixed in about equal parts.
peheFe tnat IN several sections OF
Florida and particularly in the Flor
ida Everglades there are many thous-
ands acres of these phosphate muck
lands the pulverized content of which
is or was produced by the erosion or
water wearing off original Engagements
of broken-up sheet phosphate deposits
which were sediment or silt in their
first situation dried and broken by sun
and air and worn by water erosion
into the pebbles we are now mining,
the pebbles being heaviest were left
in their present sites in the lower
levels whilst the pulverizations float
ing on the waters surface were final
ly deposited at and in the final reef
eddies.