When we turn to the consideration of the third plant food we feel
better. While the United States has no such monopoly of phosphates as
Germany had of potash and Chile had of nitrates we have an abundance and
to spare. Whereas we formerly _imported_ about $17,000,000 worth of
potash from Germany and $20,000,000 worth of nitrates from Chile a year
we _exported_ $7,000,000 worth of phosphates.
Whoever it was who first noticed that the grass grew thicker around a
buried bone he lived so long ago that we cannot do honor to his powers
of observation, but ever since then--whenever it was--old bones have
been used as a fertilizer. But we long ago used up all the buffalo bones
we could find on the prairies and our packing houses could not give us
enough bone-meal to go around, so we have had to draw upon the old
bone-yards of prehistoric animals. Deposits of lime phosphate of such
origin were found in South Carolina in 1870 and in Florida in 1888.
Since then the industry has developed with amazing rapidity until in
1913 the United States produced over three million tons of phosphates,
nearly half of which was sent abroad.
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