12 



BULLETIN" 798, U. S. DEPAKTMENT OF AGKICULTURE. 



Arkansas more than seven-eighths of the cottonseed meal was so 

 used. On the other hand, in the Eastern States a greater proportion 

 was used for fertilizer. The highest proportion used for that pur- 

 pose was 79.3 per cent in North Carolina, with South Carolina only 

 slightly below that percentage, 76.9 per cent. In Georgia about one- 

 haK of the cottonseed meal was used for fertilizer and in Alabama 40 

 per cent. These are the States that depend on the liberal use of fer- 

 tilizer for the continuation of their chief industry, which is cotton 

 growing. The farmers in these States find it good economy to return 

 the cottonseed meal to the soil so as to enable it to produce the maxi- 

 mum amount of new cotton plants. It is a characteristic of the cot- 

 ton plant that comparatively little plant food is removed from the 

 soil provided the seed is returned to the ground. 



POTASH-BEARING MATERIALS. 



A special schedule was sent to all the producers of potash. The 

 returns on this schedule refer to the years 1917 and 1918. The 1918 

 returns are based on actual operations for the first nine months and 

 on estimates for the remaining three months. Table IX shows the 

 quantity of potash produced from each of the principal sources and 

 the proportion derived from each source. 



Table IX. — Potash produced from the different sources during 1917 and 1918. 



Source. 



Quantity of K2O 

 produced (2,000- 

 pound tons). 



Percentage of total 

 K2O produced 

 from each source. 





1917 



1918 



1917 



1918 



Total from all sources 



32,258 



53,538 



100 



100 







Mineral sources: 



Total 



25,450 



43,820 



78.9 



81.8 







Brines 



21,445 



245 



1,454 



2,306 



38,658 



303 



2,015 



2,557 



176 



111 



66.5 



.8 



4.5 



7.1 



72 2 



Flue dust from blast furnaces 



6 



Cement dust 



3 7 



Alnnifp. 



4 8 



Slate 



.3 









2 











Organic sources: 



Total 



6,808 



9,718 



21.1 



18 2 







Kelp 



3,372 



2,006 



1,134 



296 



5,092 



1,861 



2,119 



646 



10.5 



6.2 



3.5 



.9 



9 5 



Tobacco waste 



3.5 



Beet-suear factory waste 



4.0 



Wood ashes 



1 2 







The total potash produced during 1918, as reported to this office, 

 including estimates for the last three months, was 53,500 tons, a fig- 

 ure which exceeds by about 1,400 tons the more recent estimates 

 made by the Geological Survey. This difference is probably due in 

 part to the fact that actual production during October, November, 

 and December, 1918, was not as great as had been expected by the 

 producers. The returns, moreover, fail to include potash extracted 



