256 



masses of seaweed off ibe Pacific Coast as a solution of the 

 potash problem, and while engineers who have studied the 

 methods so far employed to develop the kelp industry have ex- 

 pressed doubt as to the possibility of its becoming a serious factor 

 in the production of potash salts, the leading company engaged 

 in the extraction of kelp is credited with confidence in its ability 

 to build up the industry on a substantial commercial basis. Dr. 

 Norton reports assuringly on the factors of cost of production, 

 cost of handling and physical properties as contributing to make 

 dried powdered kelp seemingly the form in which a substantial 

 commercial demand can be most quickly secured and a form 

 which would appeal rapidly to the manufacturers of mixed fer- 

 tilizers. 



The contamination of soda has Ijeen the greatest prol)]cm in 

 the extraction of potash from kelp, both the dissolution and ordi- 

 narv crystallization processes being inadequate to overcome on a 

 practical scale the closeness of solubility between potash and 

 soda. Dr. Norton regards the employment of a new method of 

 fractional crystallization as an important step toward the solu- 

 tion of this difficulty and the operation of this process opens a 

 liopeful field for our potash independence. Government ex])erts 

 have estimated that two annual cuttings of the kelp beds off the 

 coast of southwestern California would yield 59,000.000 tons, 

 or the equivalent of 2,300,000 tons of potassium chloride, which, 

 if marketed at current rates, would yield about $90,000,000, but 

 if the kelp crop were dried and marketed at prevailing prices for 

 both the i)otash and nitrogen content its value would exceed 

 $150,000,000. 



Dr. Norton's report offers little encouragement for the com- 

 mercial extraction of potash from the mineral deposits of Cali- 

 fornia, for, while they contain frequently relatively high per- 

 centages of potash, they are not sufficiently high to overcome the 

 serious difficulty of remoteness from existing conveniences for 

 transportation, the chief demand for potash as a fertilizer com- 

 ing from the eastern half of the country and very largely from 

 the Gulf States.- — Tropica! Life. 



SIR IlOR.Kl'. PLUNKF.TT ON COoPliRAIJON . 



\ Address al the Coiu/ress of Tropical .U/ricidtiire.] 



We arc to deal today with a subject to which ])crhaps I may 

 attach undue im])ortance, but as we have to deal with it in an 

 hour, that renders it im])ossible for me to do justice to the sub- 

 ject without doing grievous injustice to those who ha\e prepared 

 [)apers, and to those who wish to hear them, f rccogni/.e that 

 there is one limitation ui>on our discussions. We arc not here 

 to treat of general principles, but rather of their p.irticular appli- 

 catif)!! to certain coimtries. so that 1 shall devote the \ery few 



