Evening star., 1938-09-11
YORRIS, Tenn.--A revolution in agri-
culture is taking place today in the
v Tennessee River Valley.

n YORR1S, Tenn.--A revolution in agri-
culture is taking place today in the
Tennessee River Valley.
It is one of the major products
Of the T " A., but its significance has
passed virtually unnoticed by the average
American in the tumult over power
Farmers friendly to the movement tel
Of sitting up nights with their guns across
their knees to stop privately owned power
companies from erecting power lines Farm
ers resentful of the T. V. A. tell of equally
spirited action on the other side, and their
opposition is still encountered. But this
farm revolution is fundamentally peaceful
The effect its advocates claim for it to
date is threefod:
l. To lift the farmers productiveness and
purchasing power.
q To bring him comfort and leisure where
he had only hardship and toll.
g. To rebuild the earth on which his fu-
ture security depends.
These represent basic change to the
people Of this hill country. yet outside the
Tennessee Valley little is heard by them
The reason apparently is that they are
nation has built of spectacular things The
average person thinks of ;he T. V. A. in
terms Of water laundering over majestic
piles of concrete and steel, of huge lakes
drowning out valleys which once were
filled with people, of sweeping floods held
back by the puny fingers of man, and. per-
haps, Of some misty Geni strding from the
bowl OF modern Aladdin's lamp with
cheap power in his fingers
Nothing Sensational'
But there is nothing sensational about
fertilizer being strewn across field
There is nothing dramatic about power
tine being strung across a hill.
And fertilizer and power lines are the
weapons Of this farm revolution.
The fertilizer is Of more immediate prac-
tical importance than the power lines. for
fertilizer saves the soil As one T. V A.
man expressed it:
Unless something is done soon to save
the SOIL there will be no soil left. No soil
no farms. No farms, no cities No farms,
no cities, no civilization. What good would
power be them"
Fertilizer in this case is phosphate. which
has been used before. in more violent form,
in revolutions. 1t will be used in violent
form again if war comes to the United
States. and the power plants OF T. " AS
Wilson Dam at Muscle Shoals Ala, return
to their original purpose-manufacture of
munitions. For phosphate means phos-
phorous, and PHOSPHORUS means smoke
screens and fire bombs to set cities ablaze.
But these are peace times here, and the
phosphates which were intended for war are
being used for peace. They are being used,
among other PLACES, on the fields of T. A.
Fosters farm out in Grainer County, Tenn.
Before the T. v. A. appeared on his
horizon, Farmer Foster planted his 1851
acres with cash crops-wheat, corn to-
bacco, cotton-right up to the tops Of the
hills. Yet in 1885 his income was s3O7
less than his expenditures and the de-
pleted earth on the hillsides, with Moth
ing to hold it, was being washed away
by the rain.
Got New Fertilizer
That was the year the county farm
agent came around and said Tom, how
about trying out some Of this new fer
tilizer the T. v. A. is making? You can
get 1t through the University Farm Ex-
tension Service and it will cost you only
the freight and handling charges If you'll
rotate your crops and put some of your
land in legumes" Tom wanted to know
what advantage the T. v. A. phosphate
Was over other phosphates, and the farm
agent explained it had been developed to
contain So per cent plant food, compared
to l6 per cent in the older fertilizers
and that 1t made alfalfa grow four to
five times as high. They talked awhile
and Farmer Foster agreed to try the
thing out for the benefit of himself and
the neighbors.
The fertilizer came, and Tom Foster
and his son, Guy Tom, spread 1t over
that part of the land they had set aside
for clover, alfalfa and the new alfalfa
substitute from Japan, lespedeza. Instead
Of devoting all their attention to cash
crops, as they had done, they put more
effort into poultry, cattle and hogs.
When Farmer Foster balanced his
books IN 1885, he found a profit of 1921,
four times better than his 1885 balance.
Part Of this was due to an unusually
good price for tobacco, but in 1897 the
farm profit still was up to 1858, almost
three times as much as 1885.
That Is the story as Foster told 1t
as we tramped across his fields together.
The figures were fine from Fosters
standpoint. Equally important in the
lons-ranse view Of the T. v. A. was the
eHect on Fosters land. Deep gullies
IN the hills the result of years of erosion,
Were Milling up again with fertile earth,
'hanks 10 terraces dug by tractors hired
co-operatlvely by Foster and nearby farm
ers And the clover, alfalfa and lespedeza
were holding the restored soil down and
leouilong it with nitrogen to enrich fu-
ture yields of corn and wheat when their
turn came in the crop rotation.
The T. V. A. fertilizer went to others
than Farmer Foster 1t went to w. A.
killion, whose 90 acres found In Jef'er-