340 



THE GAT?DENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA. 



There are over 10 miles of our own railroad. In going over to the 

 western tract tliat day, one of our friends rode in the engine cab, 

 while the other two of us sat on the water tank on each side of 

 the boiler, where we could plainly see everything there was to see. 



From the top of the crag, this 

 posit. The bed they were wo 



A Little Joui 



IT happened on the fourteenth of June. 

 There were three of us. 

 The Little Journey was to be one of convincement. 



Luckily one of us brought a camera along so we can now 

 show you a few of the things we saw. 



We started from the factory, where the natural humus is 

 converted into Alphano, and took our private railway across to 

 the western tract, two miles or more away. The humus deposit 

 here averages 6 feet deep. To get an idea of the real magnitude 

 of the proposition, we climbed up on top of a rocky crag and 

 got a bird's-eye view of one strip over half a mile long, that 

 was being worked. 



From here we looked down on the big electric digger which 

 removes the natural crop producing humus and beating it up 

 in fine pieces, scatters it for hundreds of feet, where it lies until 

 cured by the sun and air. 



In further parts of the field, electrically driven scrapers were 

 piling the fertile sweetened humus up along the railroad track; 

 and gangs of men shoveling it into the cars. 



Long strings of these humus-laden cars were constantly 



crcssing the field on their way to the big compost piles, wh( 

 It will stay for months, fermenting and multiplying by t 

 millions, the bacteria of ferment, which is absolutely necessa 

 to any soil's fertility. 



Next we walked back leisurely to the factory, where t 

 natural humus is concentrated and made into Alphano. At t 

 bottom of the compost pile, where the natural humus is oldi 

 and thoroughly bacterized, a big travelling screw conveys 

 to the huge steel drying drums. 



Here we peeked into the drums and saw the heavy mo 

 ture laden natural humus come in at one end, and pass out 

 the other in its dry, finely granulated condition. 73 or 80 

 of the moisture is entirely driven from it. Several tons of t 

 natural humus make but one ton of the concentrated humus. 1 

 say it another way — if you buy a ton of the usual, so calli 

 Natural Humus, you pay for about 1 500 pounds of water 



From the drying drums, endless chain buckets take the co 

 centrated humus up to the mixing room. It was about tl 

 mixing room that our two friends seemed the most curious. 



But when they saw the rich, concentrated available pla 



There are still acres and ac_es oi the rich leal mold de- 

 posit that we l:ave not yet cleared of its tropical-like 

 tangle. In going through here on our railroad, you would 

 almost declare you were in a Panama forest. 



17-G Battery ] 



There are two iniriieiise compost piles. This 

 was taken, it contained between 30 and 40 lb 

 that several estates on Long Island alone, h 

 need two such piles. 



