Evening star., 1920-01-13
POTASH PLANT NEW
INDUSTRY IN WEST
College Graduate Surprises
Doubling Father by
Making Good.
BY HERBERT COREY.

NEW YORK, January 12.-Fathers
who have considerable sums invested IN
sons who have graduated from college
are requested to cheer up. Every now
and then one of them comes through.
rs the lower classes say along Broad
way. The percentage is even high
enough to justify fathers who are now
engaged in son speculations keeping the
margin good.
"The potash business" said big man
downtown today. which is engaging the
attention of good part of the country,
is largely due to college son whose
father would have sold him on the hoof
in carload lots if he could have found
a bidder"
Even those not interested in potash
know that Germany used to produce
most of it. During the war this source
began to make a good deal of potash on
the first pages of the newspapers, but
very little in the laborat tory. Various
important industries were on the point
of begging down completely. Enter the
college son.
Father PrOmised Backing.
"He was the son of a well-to-do,
hardheaded and highly pessimistic man
of Nebraska" said the big downtowner
expense in various lines and not success
fully. Finally, he thought he would
buy ranch. He had an idea that he
could cross golden bronze turkeys with
carrier pigeons or something of the
sort. His father gave permission and
promised backing up to given sum.
But that finishes you,' said papa
:" 'Fi-ni! Do you get me? If you botch
this ranch job I'm off you for the rest
OF our natural lives. I'll put you to
carrying water for the hands,"
The college son got an option on a
beautiful ranch with lovely lake in
it. and paid $4,000 down. Then he
discovered that the lovely lake was so
full of alkali that teal duck used to
get bilious in flying over it. He went
around and explained to the seller
that he had not known this important
fact when he bought the ranch and
asked him. please, if he would give
the $4,000 back. The seller quoted
some low maxim to the effect that
and went off with a shiver in his
shoulders. Father discovered that his
expensively educated son had struck
a new vein of bone, and the family
physician spent the next two or three
days in pressing father back in his
SageS.
Papa Very Explosive.
I'm through with YOU" father said,
eventually. while the family physician
clamped a new towelful of ice to his
forehead. He put lot Of feeling into
that sentence. Persons passing near
by thought some foreign virtuoso was
trying out a new calliope. Get out
of this the best you can. I'm done"
The college son went back to the
beautiful ranch on which there was a
lovely lake, and thought up new
forms of crime. A further effort to
compromise with the seller merely
unearthed the Information that the
seller would not give back nickel
of his gains. The college son brought
suit and the court ruled against him.
Then, having had a smattering of
chemistry in his college course, he
went down to the shores of the love-
ly lake with test tube and retort,
or something, and began to make
experiments. He acted on the COM
mon sense theory that water that
smelled and tasted as badly as that
of the lovely lake just naturally must
be good for something. 1t wasn't in
nature that 1t shouldn't be. And after
back to see his father:
"I've discovered potash in my lake."
said he, land have devised a plan to
produce it cheaply. Now will you let
me have lot more money SO I can
start real potashery?"
According to the big downtown
man, fathers life was despaired of
for the next few minutes. But the
college son stood pat. Eventually
father consented to have the discov-