The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1921-10-21
WHAT RA|NDROPS
MEAN TO FARMER
Crop Reports Indicate Difference
Few Showers Make in Human
ity's Scheme of Things.
BIG PART PLAYED BY NATURE.
Takes About $3.50 Tons of Water to the
Acre to Grow Food Crop-Process
of Evaporation Yields Chemicals
Valuable as Fertilizer.

Washington, d. Grain might be
looked upon as the oil which lubricates
the worlds economic machinery" says
a bulletin issued from the Washing
ton, d. c., headquarters of the Ma
tional Geographic society in connec-
ton with recent reports of worldwide
drought damage to crops
with the smallest estimated cotton
crop since 1893" continues the bulle-
tin, with spring wheat in poor con-
dition at home as well as in many of
the other wheat countries of the world,
with other important crops below their
average and with drought cast as the
villain, or at least as an accOmplice,
in each case the difference that few
showers make in humanity's scheme
of things is strongly emphasized.
Depends on Rainfall.
"While everybody realizes In gen.
eral way that the world depends on
rainfall and fertility for food, there
are very few, perhaps, who even ap-
proximately appreciate how compare
lively little the farmer actually does
in the great process of crop-growing.
To pillow millions of acres furrow by
furrow, to spend millions of dollars
on fertilizers, and to reap and gather
and thresh, is no mean task. And yet
compared with the part that nature
plays in the process, mans work
seems a very slight labor. For in
stance, it takes about 20 inches of
rainfall to grow food crop under our
general farming methods, which means
about 2,26O tons of water to the acre.
That seems prepOsterOuS figure, but
the dOubter can easily demonstrate
Its correctness. Suppose the Ameri-
can farmer had to haul the water his
ground must have to give him good
crop, and that the distance and freight
rate were the same as the average
railroad haul and rate in the United
States. On that basis it would cost
him more than $4,000 an acre to wa
ter his place.
But not only would his water bill
be nearly half million dollars on
100-acre farm, but his fertilizer bill,
Also would amount to neat little
sum. 1t is estimated that in the proc
ess of normal evaporation, soil wa
ter presents the rootlets of its neigh
borhood with about fourteen pounds
of ammonia a year to the acre. Al
So it gives them some 81 pounds of
potash. With sulphate of ammonia
costing only 2 cents a pound dt cost
51a during the war; and hundred |
pounds of the sulphate required to
contribute II pounds of ammonia, 1t |
will be seen that the process of evap- |
Grafton gives the rootlets $1.65 worth |
of ammonia to the acre.
Automatic Fertilization.
"When the World war cut off Ger
man supplies of potash and it scared
to $500 a ton, biologists secured the
United States for the priceless fertil-
izer with little success. Yet the proc
ess of evaporation generously hands
out more than half hundredweight
to the acre, in war and peace. This
fertilization is worth an
additional $3.50 an acre to the farmer
1T present prices, and would have cost
him $40 an acre at war prices.
"From this it will be seen that the
s12 to SO an acre that it costs the
average farmer to grow wheat is
small figure indeed, compared to what
le saves by having nature as his wa
er wagon and fertilizer source"