12 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



is grown on comparatively small acreages, spraying is often not 

 effectively done, and poor and infected seed is too often planted. 

 The net production of potatoes, after allowing for the rot, is 

 about 2 970,000 bushels this year as compared with 4,564,000 

 last year. 



Fertilizer Situation. 

 The fertilizer outlook is not as bright as one might wish. 

 Appreciable relief from the existing high prices and shortage of 

 supply of 1919 does not appear to be immediately forthcoming. 

 A well-informed fertilizer authority comments on the situation 

 in part, as follows: — 



The strike called in the rock phosphate fields of Florida last May is 

 still nominally in force. These fields furnish 77 per cent of the rock phos- 

 phate produced in the United States, and practically all of that used in 

 the New England territory. The mines have to be guarded, and quite 

 recently it has been necessary to place guards in rock phosphate trains. 

 For a time the workings were tied up absolutely. The supply of phos- 

 phoric acid for wheat fertilizer was decreased, and because of shortage 

 of this material, factories were idle during the time when they should have 

 been laying up stocks against next spring's demand. Indications seem 

 to point to a shortage in the spring of 1920. 



A further difficulty has to do with a ten weeks' strike among the miners 

 of the Alsatian potash fields. This has now been settled, but the resulting 

 shortage cannot be made good. Moreover, Europe is in a much better 

 position than the United States to make use of the raw salts from these 

 mines. Very few of the mines are as yet sufficiently equipped to refine 

 the salts for export to the United States. 



Another complicating factor is that our domestic producers curtailed 

 operations last winter, fearing that they would be swamped by competi- 

 tion from Europe. Perhaps that fear had its origin in the fact that farmers 

 had been assured of a plentiful supply from Alsace and to a certain degree 

 were discriminating against domestic production. Unless conditions 

 change, it will still be some time before quantity production and cheap 

 potash is resumed. 



Labor troubles are imperiUng our supply of ammoniates. A shutdown 

 in our coal mines and the resulting tie-up of ocean transportation reduces 

 both the supply of domestic produced sulphate of ammonia and of im- 

 ported nitrate of soda. At the present time these two materials furnish 

 the great bulk of nitrogen used in commercial fertilizers. In addition, 

 more and more, during recent years, packing house by-products have 

 been used for animal foods instead of fertilizers. Similarly, just now, there 

 is a tendency to make such use of fish refuse. This change is certainly 

 economical, but, equally, it diminishes the supply of ammoniates during 

 the time when readjustment is being made. 



