Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1922-04-04
NITROGEN A NECESSITY
Imperative That America Secure Her
10. Supply. a,. ,r
MUSCLE SHOALS MUST Be UTILIZED
Behind the Great Strife in Connection
With Muscle Shoals in the Future
Welfare of Ameriea-An lndepend-
dent Supply of Fertilizer Must be
IL -

NSiiS SeHf'y h~' =
Had. ~ '-ls t@ -
1t is written large in human history
that no nation or civilization ever has
! disappeared except from one, or both'
+: OF two reasons. They either were beat
= en- down by "a ass6perior military adver-
5 sery or they had exhausted the ferti-
lity of their soils and had to move to
new lands, sometimes perishing by
the way. There have been races for
gold in history, but that is giving way
TO a new race, the race for nitrogen
The Battle of Muscle Shoals that Is
being fought now in congress and else
where really is the first skirmish In
the battle for nitrogen. The great
war was d war of nitrogen. Nations
gathered it up and hurled it at each
other as JoVe hurled the lightnings.
It Is the food, the clothing, the shell
ter and the war stuff of the world.
Plenty Of nitrates in America will re-
store the fields now being exhausted,
will furnish war material without
which guns and planes and soldiers
are useless and helpless and will keep
two great dangers, aforesaid, from
drawing nigh America.
Henry Ford wants to insure these
two things for. US at Muscle Shoals.
The Chilean nitrate interests and the
coking industry and divers other are
opposed to him. They would pre-
fer to keep the situation where it Is
today. Incidentally Henry Ford wants
to give the farmer cheap fertilizer so
he may buy more automobiles Ma
turally. considerable money will move
thereby in the direction of the Ford
treasury.
However, that is not what the inter-
ests assailing Ford at present fear
most. They are fearful that money
will not be the first consideration, but
that he may wish: to do for agricul-
ture and for other interests what John
d. Rockefeller has done for medicine.
They are fearful of what he may bring
about in chemistry, machine e-brilding,
hydro electric fields and the light
metal business. They are not worried
about its hope TO sell a tractor, n
truck and car, all for $1,000 as much
as they are about a possible Ford as
piration to go down in history as the
man who made agriculture business
and profession instead Of a gamble.
There are other phases to Muscle
Shoals, but nitrogen Is the main one.
At the present time there are three
main sources Of nitrogen, The Chill
can nitrate beds are first; and. be-
tween 1857 and 1919 we spent for this
nitrate for export duties to Chile, for
insurance and shipping, about $780,
100000. Chile got $163,647,00O of this
in duties. We had hauled 13,S14;0O0
long tons of 1t to America at the end
OF 1919 when we brought in 6S,229,OO0
tons. We are now bringing in about
SIS, ZOO, 900 tons year, and 1t is not
enough. The world is falling behind
in it's production of nitrogen, and the
nitrate beds, less rich now, will not
last forever. We get no American nj
trogen by airfixation; and of the am
monium sulphate produced as eoking
bylproduct, not more than 100000 tons
a year come on the fertilizer market.
Muscle Shoals is the one answer in
sight. There and in the immediate
neighborhood are two government nj
trate- -fixation plants, one partially
completed dam across the Tennessee
river; a great steam power plant,
quarry, transmission line eighty
eight miles long and about 1000 acres
of land. The two nitrate piCnts at
cost, plus wartime prices, represent
about sS5,000,000. One of them, cost
ing $13,000,000, is a failure. Both Of
them could now be built at half the
wartime cost
About $17,000,000 has been spent on
the dam to help navigation and fur
nislI water power. 1t will develop an
average of 100000 horsepower daily
and never less than 100000. The
steam plant, as an auxiliary, is good
for 125,OOO horsepower.
In the Tennessee watershed are mil
lions of tons of coal and phosphate
rock. The air is overheard, there is
lime in the hills, the No. nitrate
plant is ready to make the nitrctes.
The river is ready to furnish the nav
igable water when the dam Is COM
plete, ready to furnish the power for
the electric furnaces, for making gas
es, phosphates, light metals, acids and
to fling a circle of power around
300-mile radius.
There stands $1O0,OOO,OOO in tax
payers money, the plants with no
wheel turning, the unfinished dam
blocking navigation, falsework falling
down, metal rusting, the whole thing
idle, waiting for congress to do some
thing. 1t is white elephant" eating
its head off on the hay of maintenance
charges.
Three things can be done with it. 1t
may be scrapped and It's cost charged
off the hooks" The government can
so into the water-power and nitrate
business and run the plant from