BUREAU OF SOILS. 305 



This additional apparatus, costing only a modest sum, will, in the 

 course of the year's operation, cause a material saving whicli will 

 amply compensate for the sliglit outlay. 



New plans for handling the kelp char by quenching the char as it 

 comes from the incinerator and subsequently handling b}^ means of 

 13umps and pipe lines will eliminate the disagreeable smoke and dust 

 now produced in the operation and will also effect a decided economy 

 through the elimination of labor. 



xV groat increase both in tlie cost of labor and of material.-:- has 

 added greatly to the difficulties of working out a commercial process, 

 but in spite of serious handicaps encountered, material progress has 

 been made toward the solution of the problem of profitable manu- 

 facture of potash from kelp. That solution is now within our grasp. 

 It only remains to increase the efficiency of processes already worked 

 out and installed to put the plant on a profit-yielding basis, to make 

 it yield a revenue in excess of the gross expenditures. Since expendi- 

 tures in this experimental plant are much greater than they would 

 be in a commercial plant devoted exclusively to production with 

 thoroughly understood and standardized processes, this test of the 

 feasibility of the kelp-potash proposition should convince the most 

 exacting. There is no reason to anticipate now any failure to put 

 this enterprise promptly on a profit-yielding basis. At the same 

 time, I do not wish to overminimize the tasks in hand. They are 

 difficult, but not as difficult as problems heretofore met and success- 

 fully solved. 



