Part 34

After it has become spent or used by refineries, it is sold for fertilizing purposes. Bone black contains from 32 to 36 per cent of phosphoric acid. In a number of places rock deposits are found that contain varying percentages of phosphate of lime. These phosphates are usually named after the place where they are obtained, as “Carolina,” “Florida,” “Tennessee” phosphates.

These rocks contain from 18 to 32 per cent of phosphoric acid, and differ from the bone products in that they contain no organic matter, and are purely mineral substances. Ground to a fine powder, they are sometimes sold under the name of “floats,” but the rock phosphates are used only to a limited extent in the crude condition.

The phosphoric acid in all the natural phosphates described is combined with lime, in a form that is extremely insoluble in water. In order to render the phosphate soluble it is sometimes treated with sulphuric acid which unites with part of the lime, leaving a phosphate which contains only a third as much lime as the natural phosphate and is soluble in water.

The lime and sulphuric acid make a compound which is the same as found in gypsum or landplaster. This combination of soluble phosphate and gypsum made by treating the natural phosphates with acid is called by various names of superphosphate—soluble phosphate, acid phosphate, acidulated rock, etc. For its manufacture the rock phosphates are generally employed, both because they are cheaper, and because the organic matter in the bones interferes with the use of sufficient acid to make all of the phosphate soluble. A good sample of phosphate contains about 16 per cent of phosphoric acid in a form that is soluble in water.

Sometimes when insufficient acid has been used a part of the soluble phosphate will change into a form intermediate in solubility, between the natural phosphate and the acid phosphate, and this is said to have undergone “reversion.” The new compound being called “reverted phosphates.” The latter product is supposed to be more available to the plant than the insoluble or natural phosphate, hence, the soluble and reverted phosphoric acid taken together are known as the “available phosphoric acid.”

Sometimes, bone meal is treated with a limited amount of sulphuric acid and the product is called “acidulated bone.” This contains a much smaller proportion of its phosphoric acid in soluble form, than does the rock superphosphate. When soluble phosphates are added to the soil, they combine soon with the mineral matter and are converted, first into the reverted phosphate, and finally into the insoluble form, such as is found naturally in the soil. In this way the phosphoric acid is fixed and there is no danger of its being lost by leaching.

The soluble phosphate present in acidulated goods is generally considered the most favorable form of phosphoric acid for use as a fertilizer.

At first sight it seems useless to go to the expense of making the phosphate soluble when it is again rendered insoluble by the soil, before the plant can make use of it. The true object in making it soluble is to aid in its distribution to the soil and thence to the plant.

When an insoluble phosphate is applied it remains where it falls, except for the slight distribution it receives by cultivating. In the case of the soluble phosphate, on the other hand, the phosphate dissolves in the soil water, and is widely distributed before it becomes fixed by the soil. In the former, also, the roots must go to the phosphate, while in the latter, the phosphate is carried to the roots.

It will therefore be observed that after the soluble phosphate is distributed throughout the soil, the individual particles must be very much smaller than is the case with the insoluble phosphate. The importance of fineness of division can not be too strongly emphasized.

Too much stress cannot be laid upon the need of intelligent use of fertilizers. A little expense and effort in carefully analyzing the soil to be treated, proving its component parts and proportions, then leaving what should be added to result in the largest production of the crops desired. No guessing nor conjecture should be indulged in, it can only lead to disaster, whereas a little scientific investigation and analysis will render success certain.

Analysis alone will not suffice. Actual testing of the various classes of soil, dividing same into small blocks and using different proportions of fertilizers on some, none on others, will insure the best results.

Farmers are furnished with a great variety of so-called fertilizers of greater or less merit, and a vast variety of mixtures almost too numerous to classify, many of which I regret to state are not at all what they are represented to be, and often are worth less than one-third the price charged therefor. No one should under any circumstances be induced to purchase anything claimed to be a fertilizer, without first having had an analysis made of the same by some chemist of unimpeachable integrity. A failure or refusal to observe this precaution will be certain to defeat the purpose in view and result in loss, instead of the gain desired. There can be no good excuse given for the unfair adulteration of fertilizers, because the supply of basic material is abundant, cheap, and can be reasonably transported, leaving a good profit for all dealers, when an absolutely pure article. As the product is now sold it ranges from 1 to 3 per cent ammonia, 6 to 12 per cent phosphoric acid, 4 to 10 per cent potash.

The unit basis of purchase is a fair one to both vendor and vendee. A unit means 1 per cent on the basis of a ton, or twenty pounds.

For example, a unit of available phosphoric acid would be twenty pounds, and if the quotation was $1.00 a unit, the phosphoric acid would cost five cents a pound. The system is applied to the sale of nitrate of soda, the potash salt, blood, meat, tankage, superphosphate, etc., and in nitrogenous goods the price is usually stated as so much a unit of ammonia.

The number of units in the material is determined by chemical analysis. This system could be applied as well to mixed as unmixed goods. But home mixing would prove by far the wisest policy, as none of the frauds common to commercial fertilizers could then be perpetrated.

It is little less than idiocy to buy any mixed fertilizer for any specific tract of land, because you may be paying for an excess of many elements, when the addition of some one single acid, such as sulphuric, for instance, would double its production. Lime, marl, muck, wood or coal ashes only would at times produce better results than the most perfect and elaborate mixed fertilizer.

Apropos of this subject, permit me to call attention to a little work of great value to every farmer. None should be without it. _Viz._, A treatise on “American Manures, and Farmers’ and Planters’ Guide,” by Wm. H. Buckner, Analytical Consulting Chemist, and J. B. Chynoweth, Eng., published in Philadelphia.

The great lawyer, Theodore Cuylor, and others, give this work unqualified approval, and any farmer, after its perusal, is amply advised as to the many frauds perpetrated in the name of fertilization, and can guard against being victimized thereby.

To attempt to deal with the fertilization question without giving ample scope to the question of water supply, would be a waste of effort, as water is the most important of all elements to be considered.

Not all land is to be benefited by irrigation, but vastly more is improved than is generally supposed. There are few sections where the natural supply is precipitated at the right time, and in proper proportion, and wherever this is the case irrigation can be profitably resorted to always, providing the supply can be economically obtained and distributed.

For example, take the rich Willamette valley in Oregon, where the rainfall is excessive during the entire spring, but little or none falls during the summer months, and it has been proven that larger or more frequent crops can be raised there with irrigation, even in this “Web-foot state.”

Perfect production is only attainable when control of all the elements is possible, and this can be accomplished only in a hot house or conservatory. But the nearest approach thereto in the open, is in an almost rainless country, where the sunshine is constant by day, the soil fertile, and irrigation possible.

Where these conditions prevail, as in Sinaloa, Mexico, as many as three crops a year can be produced upon the same area, and it is safe to state that there are few regions where the irrigation of the land will not prove beneficial. In most instances the providing of irrigation carries with it the necessity for a drainage system as well. It is not the placing of water on the land which causes the benefit, but the passage of the water through the soil, carrying the fertility or plant food to the roots, hence flow must be kept up, and often this can only be insured by providing a drainage system.

Our country is so new, and our soil was so fertile originally, that abundant crops were produced thereon for many years, but this constant cropping of the same product, year after year, has exhausted vast areas and their life must be renewed.

Fertilizers are abundant and accessible in the United States and can be laid down on any farm near to lines to transportation, and if of genuine character and properly applied, crops can be doubled or better each season.

Professor Hopkins of the Illinois university more than doubled the production of wheat on a certain tract of land under this supervision. The natural yield was about twenty-four bushels; fertilized, fifty-six bushels per acre.

Although the phosphate deposits now known to exist are of vast area, it was not until 1889 that the Florida deposits were accepted as valuable and extensive.

Pebble deposits of Florida are supposed to underlie an area of about 2,000 square miles, and are on lands about 160 feet above sea level.

Over-burden:

1. Soil and subsoil, few inches to six feet.

2. A light colored sand, few inches to ten feet.

3. Stiff clay vari-colored at times, capping of sandstone color brown to pure white.

MATRIX 212°.

Organic matter 2.40 Phosphoric acid 15.29 Carbonic acid 6.70 Lime 20.00 Iron and aluminum 13.06 Fluoride and magnesia .60 Insoluble silica and sand 41.95 ------ 100.00 Equivalent to tribasic phosphate of lime 32.33 Equivalent to carbonate of lime 15.20

Land pebbles average from 65 to 70 per cent tribasic phosphate of lime.

River pebbles are of the same origin, but slightly less value, 60 per cent to 63 per cent phosphate of lime. The whole Peninsula of Florida is underlaid with white limestone of the Vicsburg age (Lower Eocene), according to Professor Lyall, upper middle Eocene, according to American geologists, which is the oldest rock in Florida. Florida was submerged until the end of the Eocene period, after which its elevation occurred. Then came the Miocene submergence followed by a second elevation, next the Champlain period and submergence, when it was covered with a mantle of sand and clay, before it arose to its present elevation.

The phosphate pebbles were formed before this last submergence, and hence washed into the depressions of limestone and over same.

ANALYSIS GRAVEL ROCK.

_Many Samples._

Phosphoric acid 36.08 Carbonate of lime 2.17 Oxide of iron and aluminum 1.94 Silica 4.50 Moisture 2.50

European Analysis of some organic matter—water.

Voelker Gilbert Marat Phosphoric acid 36.56 36.33 36.84 Lime 52.08 Oxide of iron 1.36 Aluminum 1.39 Magnesia carb. phos 7.17 Insoluble 0.85 ----- 100. Tribasic phosphate of lime 79.81 79.31 80.43

Early in this century the marl beds of New Jersey were worked and used for fertilization. This led to the discovery of similar deposits in South Carolina. One Lardue Venaxen, who made the first geological survey in 1826, discovered same, but no work was done until 1842, when Edward Ruffin of Virginia confirmed the reports of previous explorers.

First carbonate of lime only was evolved; 20 per cent up to 90 per cent, but later from 2 per cent to 9 per cent of phosphate of lime was found by Dr. C. W. Sheppard and J. Lawrence Smith, Esq.

During the war, nodules and strata of rock phosphate were found by Dr. N. A. Pratt near Ashley River.

It was not until April 14, 1868, that any systematic production of phosphate was accomplished in South Carolina, when the first cargo was shipped from Charleston and the arrival of same created a veritable epidemic of phosphate fever in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and other cities.

ANALYSIS.

_Mean of many hundreds of samples._

[1]Phosphoric acid from 25.0 per cent to 28.00 per cent [2]Carbon acid from 2.50 per cent to 5.00 per cent Sulphuric acid from 0.50 per cent to 2.00 per cent Lime from 35.00 per cent to 42. per cent Magnesia traces Aluminum traces Sesqui oxide of iron 1.00 to 4.00 per cent Fluoride 1.00 to 2.00 per cent Sand and silica 4.00 to 12.00 per cent Organic matter and water.

[1] Equivalent to 55 to 61 per cent tribasic phosphate of lime.

[2] Equivalent to 5 to 11 per cent carbonate of lime.

In 8 per cent there was shipped from

Florida 250,000 tons North Carolina 150,000 tons South Carolina 200,000 tons Alabama 125,000 tons Virginia 150,000 tons Mississippi 50,000 tons Louisiana 25,000 tons Tennessee 25,000 tons ------- 975,000 tons

In Ontario there exists one area of from seventy-five to one hundred square miles, and another from fifteen to twenty-five miles wide, and 100 miles long of commercial phosphate.

It is found in many other places, but not proven.

Here it occurs in flint and has been worked by farmers in a desultory way, costing much and yielding little profit to the operators.

On the Lievre River, two and one-half miles from Highfall and twenty miles from Bushman, there was the famous Watt mine, where, from a cone-shaped mountain, a vast amount of pure apatite was mined, once called “Emerald.” Quite a number of deposits have been worked in Canada, but not any with great profit.

ANALYSIS.

Phosphoric acid 40.868 Fluoride 3.731 Chloride 0.428 Carbonic acid 0.105 Lime 48.475 Calcium 4.168 Magnesia 0.158 Alumina 0.835 Sesqui oxide 0.005 Insoluble 1.150 ------- 100.823

Tribasic = 89.219

About the year 1880 a stratum of calcium phosphate was discovered near Mount Fairview, Tennessee. At first it was not believed to be of great extent, or good quality, but ere long both were abundantly proven, and a large quantity of high grade phosphates was mined.

But owing to the rush of producers in every direction, without any system or unity of action, the crazy competitors soon glutted the market, forcing the price down below cost of production.

Of recent years, a few big operators have gathered in most of the choice areas, and by introducing up-to-date methods, etc., have gradually brought the production down to a normal basis, and the price up to a profitable figure.

The volume of deposit in this region is very great, extending from about ten miles south of Mount Pleasant to the line of the Tennessee Central Railway and beyond, and a width of over fifty miles.

In and about Mount Pleasant the deposit lies under a very thin over-burden, often only the surface soil of ten feet thickness or width, a layer of from two to eight feet of white sandstone beneath this, the substratum of limestone being near the surface, and of vast thickness. Also somewhat uneven or undulating, making depressions of twenty-five feet at times, which are in turn filled with the phosphate deposit.

As the topography becomes uneven the plains cease and foothills occur, the character of the over-burden changes and that of the phosphate likewise.

As an elevation of 600 feet above sea level is reached, and exceeded, the over-burden becomes of greater thickness, and chert or flint and some limestone and conglomerate overlie the phosphate.

In and about Mount Pleasant the deposit is mixed with sand and is soft and easily excavated from the surface, whereas in the higher altitude, the same becomes hard as stone and has to be excavated by tunneling under the chert, as drift mining is done.

The protection of this latter deposit from atmospheric action and percolating waters, both, or with the compression, renders the phosphate of higher class. Although the stratum is not so thick as out in the valley, it ranges from two to six feet. Two is a fair mean. Quite an extensive area of this deposit has been bought or leased by a Cincinnati company, which plans to develop same upon an intelligent modern plan and gradually upon a large scale.

At Mount Pleasant, Mr. John Ruhm, Jr., a college-bred man of rare intellect and great capacity, has devoted many years to a study and operation of his phosphate deposits, in the most scientific manner possible. He has kept in close touch with the most advanced men of the age, such as Prof. Hopkins of the State University of Illinois, who has given more time to the study and practice of fertilization than any man in the United States. Prof. Hopkins finds it necessary to reduce the phosphates to a 100-mesh fineness to enable him to obtain the best results, and Mr. Ruhm has for years been experimenting with the grinding machinery to discover the best and cheapest for this purpose. Only this year, in July, did he discover that the “Hardinge” tube-mill is, in all respects, the best machine tested. He got 90 per cent duty from over 200 tons a day at 100-mesh, and some of this over 200-mesh fineness; 100-mesh is possible, grinding the same either wet or dry.

I had the good fortune to witness these July tests and can confirm Mr. Ruhm’s claims for his process, which he does not selfishly try to keep, but generously gives to all who ask information.

The Tennessee phosphates of commerce are not quite as high grade, and do not command as high a price as others, but this is entirely due to the careless preparation of same for market. So soon as Mr. Ruhm’s plan is followed, the grade will be raised, and price follow to topmost.

ANALYSIS.

Phosphoric acid 36.33 Lime 52.08 Oxide of iron 1.36 Aluminum 1.39 Magnesia and carbonic acid 7.17 Insoluble 0.85 ----- 99.19

The above represents a mean of about thirty analyses of samples taken from over a 10,000 acre area, principally from exposed outcrop, hence a test of protected product would give larger percentages.

As the United States Geological Survey has not been extended over the area embracing a large part of these phosphate lands, one can only conjecture concerning their scope although it is safe to assume it to be very great.

I believe this crude treatment of this question will suffice to suggest two important facts:

First. That we have available in this country an abundant supply of phosphates to enable us to replenish the fertility of our soils at a reasonable cost.

Second. That this feature should be carefully studied by every farmer in the country, and the maximum result obtained from every acre tilled and every day’s labor performed.

In addition to the deposits of phosphate in Idaho, Utah and Wyoming, which only need equal transportation facilities to introduce their product, we must have others, as yet undiscovered, because few laymen, and not all engineers, recognize the deposit when found, and it is not always discoverable without excavation where it does exist.

“A little farm well tilled” can be made to produce more abundantly, more profitably, than one larger and less effectively handled, hence no matter how rich and fertile nature may have made your farm, it is hardly possible that it may not be improved and reward you abundantly for it.

During the summer of 1911, I had the good fortune to be employed to examine an area of phosphate deposit some fifty miles above Mount Pleasant in Tennessee, and, in order to better understand the subject, first visited Mount Pleasant and vicinity to note conditions, progress, etc., hence my data relative to this section is fresh and new.

I know I am justified in asserting that there is a vast field for the exploitation of this valuable deposit in this region, with ample assurance of the development of a vast area that can be profitably worked.

One thing is certain, nowhere can the deposit be more fully determined, and nowhere be more economically worked, hence this region should become the most productive of any ere long.

Over an extensive area there is spread out a layer or blanket of this phosphate rock, lying under a huge mass of chert or flint rock and resting on a bed of shale or slate, which in turn rests upon a vast bed of limestone several hundred feet deep.

The phosphate seam is from six inches to four feet in thickness and lies about 600 feet above sea level and about 150 feet above the valleys that cut through it, so that tunnels can readily be run in under the seam at any desired place, and the phosphate be stoped out _ad libitum_.

Only a very small portion of the country has been surveyed by the United States Geological Survey, hence but little is known of its contents and characteristics.

But my investigations prove that a very large area contains this deposit, extending for many miles east and west and north and south from Boma on the Tennessee Central as a center.

It is therefore quite certain that there is no dearth of this commodity, and there is not likely to be for many years to come, as other deposits are likely to be discovered as the known ones are exhausted.

Now! the moral of the foregoing: We have available at reasonable cost the elements to reënrich our soil. Hence, our farmers should first cultivate their minds, that they may be able to discover in what elements their soil is defective, or what is wanting, to enable them to get best results. A very liberal education should be obtained, if possible, for in no walk of life is a greater scope of knowledge required and profitable to a farmer. Then, the farmers should unite all over the country to endeavor to elevate and ennoble labor and the laborers, which can be done only by example, by acts and deeds, not by preaching.

Every honor, reward and benefit of every character should be open to and be given the farmer and artisan laborer, and, in the degree that each deserves credit for work well done, the reward should follow.