Evening star., 1923-06-17
EY BEN MckELWAY,

ONE millions of years ago a
mountain range off the western
coast Of South America poked
its head above the Pacific
ocean and left Chile in supreme con-
tror of one of the niftiest monopolies
on an essential commodity that ever
existed. This mountain range, so the
story goes. cut off portions of the ocean,
thus forming an inland sea. A hot sun
dried up this sea in time and left large
deposits Of sodium nitrate
Given a supply of sodium nitrate
and other chemicals which form his
fertilizer, a farmer will apply the
mixture to his land and grow lux
| uriant fields of corn, dense acres of
wheat, become rich and fat in time
and raise large patches of rosy
checked children who in turn will be-
come prosperous American citizens.
Give the munitions maker fair sup
ply of this nitrate and his factories
will turn out powerful explosives,
safe TO handle, yet deadly i'll their
effect. Deny the farmer his nitrate
and he will watch his land grow bar
rem and become a desert waste, he
will grow lean himself, beat his wife
and eventually become an /. w. w.
who blows up bridges and breaches
agin' the government. Deny the mu-
| nitions maker his nitrates and his
factories will stop running. the guns
will stop shooting and the flag will
come tumbling, of necessity. to the
ground
War Showed the Need.
The war brought home to the
| United States government its de-
! pendence on nitrogen. Great guam
titles of it We're brought from Chile,
and enabled the United States to turn
tons and tons of explosives as fast
as machinery and human hands could
make them. And now peace times
are teaching the United States how
| dependent it is on nitrogen, and
! therefore on Chile. to keep it's farms
| green with growing food and its peo-
| pie we'll fed. For agriculturists say
| the fertility of the soil in this coun-
try is steadily decreasing. American
| farmers can raise only fourteen or
where European farmers raise twice
and three times that amount. AS the
use of the land increases, the need
for fertilizer increases. The use o1
the land is increasing while its fer
tility is decreasing, and at the same
time the farmer is confronted witt
the demands of his hired men fol
more pay. So the only way for thi!
farmer to make an even break ant
split ffty-f1fty with himself is to use
more fertilizer. which puts the poor
farmer in that we'll known position
lyin 'twift the devil and the deer
blue sea. For the farmer can't bu,
any more fertilizer than he's buyinG
now, chiefly because of the price o
ntrates.
Three Soil Foods Lacking.
Experience las shown that farm
lands. generally speaking, in tn
United States lack in three soil food
, phosphorus, potassium and nitro
gen. Phosphorus and potassium ar
available, but nitrogen. the most i'm
portant of the three, must be bough
from Chile-and the price comes high
Meanwhile the fertility of the soil i
being mined rapidly and the use o
fertilizer is only in its beginning.
This brings the story to the crux o
the situation-the monopoly on nj
trates and what the United States cal
do to get around 1t.
The source of supply of nitrogen Il
this country is three fold. 1t come
as a by-product from the manufac
ture of coke and gas. Some of it i
obtained from animal and vegetabl
wastage-such as tankage in TIL
, packing industries, fish scrap. etc
The balance comes from Chile in tn
, form of sodium nitrate. and this bal
ance forms the main source of supply
the others being virtually negligible
+ The Chilean Monopoly.
The mountain range which rose ou
: of the sea millions of years ago CAV
Chile the only large natural and work
able deposits of nitrogen in the world
And Chile, having the corner on a.
important commodity, has naturall,
taken advantage of the situation