The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-09-10
GETTING MORE POTASH
Rr HOLLAND

New York. September 9.-(special.)
 Charles L. Hyde, president of the Amer
 iean Exchange bank at Pierre, s. D.. is
 one of the business men of the west
 and the northwest who appreciates how great is the necessity for providing ann
 pie fertilizers for the American farm
 CTS so that there can be confidence in ] the reaping of large harvests next summer and fall. In some parts of the
 east and in the south there is also anx- l iety due to the fact that the supply of
 potash, which American importers held at the beginning of the war with Ger
 many, Is now practically exhausted.
 These importers doled out the supply
 in moderate portions, hoping thereby to
 aid in the manufacture of fertilizing material. But there is now no more
 of it.
 Men of science have been deeply in- terested in our potash and fertilizer
 opportunities. but perhaps the best source of supply, if it were only avail
 able, is that furnished by the deposits
 of potash in the great Searls Lake re- zion of southwestern California. Mir. |
 Hyde who has some familiarity with this deposit. regards 1t as wonderful one, and thinks that if it could be de- veloped it would go far towards re- lieving the anxiety occasioned by the scarcity of potash. Development, how
 ever, MT. Hyde says, has been impossi- ble, because an English syndicate and those who are the real flers or owners have been engaged in desperate litiga- ton for some years In the present emergency there seems to be strong
 ot take the property over and permit immediate development of it.
 The governments interest in stimu- lating industry so that the natural re-
 sources of the United States in potash
 may be well developed is made evident by the attempts now under way off tfe coast of California to procure the pot ash that is in the sea weed known as kelp It is a matter for the chemists and the men of research still to study since in addition to the potash salts that are in kelp tn ere is also a great deal of iodine as we'll as other material. If the men of reserch and science can fully demonstrate, as they have now partially demonstrated, the mechanical and chemical means by which the pot ash can be recovered and marketed upon reasonable terms, then there should be a great development of the industry upon the Pacific coast Capital | Is ready to invest in this industry, and
 in fact has already done so.
 | When it was known that the United States was running short of it's supply I of potash, as 1t was also known that
 Germany relied to some extent upon
 the inability of the United States to secure potash from Germany for ad-
 ditional embarrassment to this country
 during the war, capital and science combined so that it could be determined
 first whether there did exist in the
 United States supplies of potash which,
 if developed, might make us independ-
 ent of Germany, and also whether the | potash could be obtained to commercial advantage. That was the point which
 capital earnestly discussed with the chemists.
 WHAT UTAH IS DOING 1 About a year after war began some
 of the men of science began carefully i to investigate the deposits of alunite in