The Hardin tribune-herald. [volume] (Hardin, Mont.) 1925-1973, 1934-03-30
Lee Vanderlinden Gives Illus.
trated Lecture on Value
of Phosphate.

trated Lecture on Value
of Phosphate.
Last Monday evening, the Holly
Sugar Corporation, in connection
with the United Metals Selling
Company of Chicago, conducted a
fine educational meeting, showing
ing moving pictures the benefits
Of using Anaconda Treble Super
phosphate with manure. The
speaker of the evening, Lee Van
derlinden of Chicago, told that
the use of phosphate with ma
nure increases the tonnage and,
more important, it increases the
sugar content. He said: II
heard, last year, that some farm
ers felt that the sun must shine
brighter in Billings than in Har-
din, because the beets grown in
the Billings district contain more
sugar than the beets grown here.
I can tell you that the reason
the beets in the Billings dis
trict carry more sugar than your
Hardin beets is because the Bill
ings growers all phosphate, while
all of you here do not. And even
if you do use phosphate here, it
will require a couple of years for
your soils to catch up with the
soils of Billings for they have been
phosphating since 1929 and have
their soils built up, while you
have been mining your soils here.
and each year your appropriated
soils are so much poorer in pro-
ductivity.
phosphate is no new aid to
farming; the US. uses 100000
tons each year, and little North
Carolina uses 100000 tons each
year, and it pays, for that state
has the smallest mortgage per
farm of any state in the union.
"A great responsibility rests
upon the farmers of this state;
that of maintaining the beet
sugar industry. You have read
in the papers that Secretary of
Agriculture Wallace says that the
beet sugar industry is inefficient
and has no reason to continue.
I say to you that he does not
mean that the beet sugar fac
tories are inefficient. He must
mean that the farmers are in
efficient. The sugar producers
can do no more to help the in
dustry; they r this minute
performing a miracle in selling
sugar at less than five cents
and still existing. They are like
the packers who use everything
of the hog except the squeal.
They use everything but the
water in the beet. But what are
you farmers doing to protect
this partnership which exists be-
tween you and the producters?
Are you practicing all the scien-
tific aids to beet production that
the sugar producer tells you
about? Are you trying to grow
good beets with manure only?
I say to you that it cannot be
done. You must use phopshate
with manure to get good beets,
and good beets carry more than
16 to ITO sugar. You see, when
an animal eats alfalfa or other
feed, it's system extracts all the
precious elem nt-phosphate-
from this feed, and the resultant
manure carries lots of potash and
nitrogen, but little of the more
important element, phosphorus.
Did you ever try to fill a barrel.
which had one stave missing, with
water? That's what you are try
ing to do, when you farm with
out phosphate.
Perhaps your father did farm
without manure. But this farm,
today, is not the same farm as
it was, when virgin. We have
seen here in Hardin, on several
farms, that 125 lbs of this phoS-
phate meant the difference be-
tween 10 tons and 20 tons. This
is better than the average re-
suit. I don't believe in averages,
too many farmers are satisfied
because their crops are as good
as the average when, as a mat
ter Of fact, there is no place in
today's agricultural circles for
the average farmer, or in business
Tor the average business man.
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