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It is in Germany's
power to dictate which of the nations shall have plenty of food
and which shall starve.
If, indeed, some mineralogist or metallurgist will cut that rope by
showing us a supply of cheap potash we will erect him a monument as big
as Washington's. But Ostwald is wrong in supposing that America is as
dependent as Germany upon potash. The bulk of our food crops are at
present raised without the use of any fertilizers whatever.
As the cession of Lorraine in 1871 gave Germany the phosphates she
needed for fertilizers so the retrocession of Alsace in 1919 gives
France the potash she needed for fertilizers. Ten years before the war a
bed of potash was discovered in the Forest of Monnebruck, near
Hartmannsweilerkopf, the peak for which French and Germans contested so
fiercely and so long. The layer of potassium salts is 16-1/2 feet thick
and the total deposit is estimated to be 275,000,000 tons of potash. At
any rate it is a formidable rival of Stassfurt and its acquisition by
France breaks the German monopoly.


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