Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-12-05
How California Met
the Call For Potash
ny Garrett p. servlss

The Giant Kelp Plants, Stretching
Their Ribbony Forms From the Sea
Bottom, offered the Precious Chem
ical Curiously Collected From the
Water by Its Cells
There is a very interesting story in
the utilization of the beds of giant
kelp on the California coast for the
production of potash to make us for
ever independent of the potash deposits
Of Germany, the possession of which
was one of her advantages over other
nations when she started the war.
The kelp is now being systematic
ally reaped on the Pacific coast. with
aquatic harvesting machines, which
are barges carrying cutting apparatus,
similar in mechanical principle to
grain-reapers, but operating at
depth of from two to four feet
beneath the surface of the water.
During the past year, the journal
of the California Fish and Game
Commission reports, nearly 100000
tons of kelp were cut and treated for
+ the extraction of potash the amount
of the latter obtained averaging one
and half per cent. per ton, which
makes 5000 tons. In addition, con-
siderable quantities of iodine, nitro
gen, and other by-products are OBJ
tained. 1t Is new industry and
various methods are being invented
and applied in Its development.
The war forced it, and in So doing
has bestowed an unintended benefit
upon the world at large, besides add
ing another to Americas independent
resources. Several years before the
war the Department of Agriculture
had awakened to the value of Cali,
fornia kelp as source of potash, but
it was not until the war-mad German
Kaiser bottled up his country's mer-
chant fleets, and cut the ground from
, beneath the home industries which
were as favoring winds blowing those
/ fleets into all the worlds parts, that
Mother Necessity called loudly for
potash and the Golden State re-
sponded by unlocking another of her
hidden treasures.
The species of kelp that most
abounds on the California coast is the
Macrocystis pyrfera, or "ribbon-kelp,"
whose stems are often hundred feet
or more in length, stretching up from
the rocky lodges or scattered rocks of
the shallow waters off shore, and
spreading into floating beds of leaves
at the surface.
The long stems do not branch, but
starting from a "holdfast" at the
bottom, make their way to the top of
the water, giving off few lamina, or
leaves, at comparatively long inter
walls, until the surface is approached,
when the leaves become relatively
/ abundant. The "harvesters" sweep
over the beds with the reaping knives.
cutting off the plants yard or more
/ below the surface.
AS often happens through the COM
mercial or industrial development of
newly utilized products of nature, the
harvesting of kelp for the sake of
! the potash which 1t extracts from the
sea is leading to more careful
/ scientific study of habits and peculi-
arities of the plant.
MIR. Edward Porteous, who has
devoted three years to this study, says
that after a harvester has cut bed
clean to the depth of four or five feet
the old kelp may be seen standing in
an upright position with its growing
ends cut off, looking not unlike a
poplar tree. This gradually disinte'