The Cordova daily times., 1922-02-14
FORD REFUSES TAKE
 FERTILIZER PLANT
(Coatin;,cd from Page D

earth's surface One of those places in Chile, South America, from where the United States buys practically all it's nitrates. The annual nitrate bill of the country has now come to be about $100,O0O,OO0 and according to figures compiled by the American Farm Blu reau Federation the United States has paid Chile since 1867 approximately $1,000.OOO,0 900 for the precious salt. By 1928, at which date the Muscle Shoals plans may be in full operation, the bill would have risen to about $1500.- 0O0,0OO.
 HIKING" INITIATES REQUIRES
 ELECTRICITY
 The only practical way yet found for the artificial manufacture of ni- trates on large scale-and it is this that constitutes the supreme import- ance of the Muscle Shoals--is to use a very high-powered electrical current for the "fixation" or the combination of the free nitrogen of the air With other chemical elements. This pro- cess is known as the syanamid pro- cess, from the name of the chemical used, and has been successfully em ployed for number of years in Nor way.
 As for extending the rivers naviea tion possibilities comes talk of or ganizing large steamer route on the Tennessee, which will carry the cot ton crop to the Seaboard and thence abroad. The river route will also serve to transport the manufactured articles when the industrial zone is developed energy the significance of Muscle Shoals can be understood when it is pointed out that more energy will be developed at that point than is repre- scented at present by the five states of North Carolina, South, Carolina Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia--all states which have made considerable advances in this respect. The total water power now in use in the United States is only approximately S,000,000 horsepower, or about twelve times the potentialities of Muscle Shoals.
 SURPLUS HORSEPOWER IS
 5OO,cOO
 The operation of the nitrate plant at the shoals will require only 1O0,- 900 horsepower, leaving a surplus of more than 500,000 horsepower for the use of towns and cities included in a 300-mile radius of the plant. This territory embraces Memphis. Birming- ham. Chattanooga, Nashville, Knox vile, Montgomery, Jackson, besides the new centers that will be developed in the course of years. The city of Memphis alone could use 50,000 horse power from Muscle Shoals at cost of 50 per cent less than the power now. employed.
 Farmers of the South are now talk ing of nothing else but the fertilizer plant, which they believe will increase the value of their land about $25 an acre. Both Ford and Edison believe that the cost of fertilizer could be cut SO as to save something like $75,- 00O,O0O annually in the production of the cotton crop alone. Phosphates, sulphates and lime deposits, all of which are subsidiary elements of az ricultureal fertilizer are found in large quantities in the territory of Ala bama and Tennessee. and thus the production of complete fertilizer could be carried on at the Muscle Shoals plant.
 FERTILIZER COST WOULD
 BE CUT
 With the water transportation avail able at Muscle Shoals it is believed that the new fertilizer could be; de- livered almost anywhere in the Unit ed States with a reduction of 20 to 50 per cent over present prices
 Considered for it's wartime possibili- ties, the Muscle Shoals plant is suffi- ciently inland to make 1t safe from attack by airplanes or an invading army.