It is not the percentage in the soil but the
percentage in the soil water that counts. A farmer with his potash
locked up in silicates is like the merchant who has left the key of his
safe at home in his other trousers. He may be solvent, but he cannot
meet a sight draft. It is only solvent potash that passes current.
In the days of our grandfathers we had not only national independence
but household independence. Every homestead had its own potash plant and
soap factory. The frugal housewife dumped the maple wood ashes of the
fireplace into a hollow log set up on end in the backyard. Water poured
over the ashes leached out the lye, which drained into a bucket beneath.
This gave her a solution of pearl ash or potassium carbonate whose
concentration she tested with an egg as a hydrometer. In the meantime
she had been saving up all the waste grease from the frying pan and pork
rinds from the plate and by trying out these she got her soap fat. Then
on a day set apart for this disagreeable process in chemical technology
she boiled the fat and the lye together and got "soft soap," or as the
chemist would call it, potassium stearate.
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