Evening star., 1938-05-29
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

YHEN an Indian planted a hill of
M corn he threw in dead fish for
good measure. 1t made the
corn grow better and taste bet
ter White settlers followed his example.
without knowing why. 1t was an effective,
but extraordinarily expensive, way of fer
= tilization-of getting into the soil and
thence into the corn something that was
essential to growth.
Long before coming to the New World
the white man had done something of the
sort ,himself-gathering bones from old
slaughterhouses and battlefelds, grinding
them to dust and scattering this dust over
his fields. This made the wheat and barley
grow better and taste better
1t was long time before either white
man or Indian found out why-that both
fish and bones contained a chemical ele-
ment, first isolated late in the seventeenth
century, which in its pure form was a
deadly poison but which, in various COM
"Troinations. was one of the basic constituents
of the universal life stuff" There was
something almost mystically living about
this element. 1t was known as the Light
Bearer-or phosphorus. Most soils con-
tanned some of it, The plants absorbed it
and made it a part of themselves. They
died and the phosphorus in them became
part of the soil again. to be absorbed by
yother plants. The element itself was in
destructible. There would be a constant
rotation of the supply in natures scheme
Of things.
Scheme Interfered With.
But both Indian and white man had in
terfered with this scheme for their own
benefit. The Indian had developed corn
into plant requiring far more phosphorus
than its wild ancestor. He ate the corn and
the phosphorus became part of him. Then
,A1e went on war party and somebody sank
tomahawk through his skull. He died
ana gave the phosphorus in him back to
Mother Earth, but not in the same place
from which it was taken. So his successors
had to make up for this with dead fish.
And when a thousand Englishmen were
killed on French battlefield the bleaching
bones which were left after a few years
meant a very considerable loss of England's
basic phosphorus supply. French peasants
grew good crops on the bone dust of Eng
lands dead. Still all this was not very seri-
fous in the centuries when agriculture was
primitive, populations scant and standards
Of living unbelievably low. Folks lived and
died in the same neighborhoods. Cattle
raised in a village were slaughtered and
eaten in the same village. There were no
Only within the last century or so did
the sewers of great cities begin emptyng
tons OF phosphorus into the seas Even
later the economic system got under way
~sby which pigs born in Iowa and fattened
on Iowa corn were slaughtered in Chicago
and eaten in Boston. Lands began to be
depleted of the basic element. Agricultural
experts began to worry, for they saw the
time, in some distant future, when there
might be very little phosphorus left. Most
of it would be mixed up with the waters
of the Atlantic Ocean. eventually to sink
to the bottom and form phosphate de-
posits for farmers few millions of gen.
erations hence.
Problem Declared Greatest Yet.
Thirty years ago, according to refer
ence cited this week by Secretary of Agri-
culture Henry A. Wallace, a great agri-
cultural expert, declared THE problem
of the conservation of phosphorus is the
most crucial. the most important and the
most far-reaching with reference to the
future of this Nation of any of the prob
lens Of conservation" What was the use
Of conserving land If the land would grow
nothing fit to eat? What was the use of
conserving forests if the basic phosphorus
necessary for the growth of forests was
lacking?
Overpopulated Western Europe, where
every acre had to yield its quota of food
supply to support the teeming population,
was the first to feel the need Of phosphates,
the combinations of phosphorus with other
elements, chiefly calcium. which are valu-
able as fertilizer. The Northeastern United
States, with q rather poor natural phos-
phorus supply, was not far behind.
Even a hundred years ago this had led
to a stirring. and slenderly recorded, chap
ter in American history. The best-known
source of phosphates was guano. natural
fertilizer, of which there were very great
supplies on islands scattered over the Pa
cific which for ages had been frequented
by enormous hosts of sea birds. New Eng
land sea captains secured the seas for
guano islands. They sighted and stripped
the guano from scores of them. In many
cases they were the first human beings to
step on these desolate dots of land Some
times they made reports of their discov-
~eres. More often, it IS probable, they
did not. The United States made no formal
claims for these discoveries; most Of them
were taken by Great Britain and France,
and today their status Is somewhat in
question. Due to the guano hunters Uncle
Sam has some sort of claim to lot Of real
estate which in these days of ocean flying
:. NAV have considerable value. One Of the
euano islands has just been occupied.
But the guano was soon exhausted. and
attention turned to other sources of phos-
phorus, the phosphate rocks in the United
States itself.