72 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
ers, we will all remember that there was 
a very great demoralization on the out¬ 
break of hostilities. The stock ex¬ 
changes closed; the money market tight¬ 
ened. This re-acted on general indus¬ 
tries, reducing the purchasing power of 
laborers and employees and resulting in 
decreased demand for almost all farm 
products. 
The farm product which suffered most 
severely at this period also is the one 
which uses more fertilizer in its produc¬ 
tion than any other crop; namely, cotton, 
and the 1914 crop was enormous while the 
central European market was at once en¬ 
tirely cut off. Later, as stock exchanges 
opened, demand coming from Europe for 
various supplies such as food stuffs, muni¬ 
tions, etc., created better feeling general¬ 
ly. Industries of the country awakened. 
More money became available and in¬ 
creased demand for farm products was 
created not only for domestic consump¬ 
tion but for export. But this phase did 
not appear in time to bring the cotton 
growers back to prosperous conditions 
and the year 1915 saw the close of many 
fertilizer factories in the cotton section. 
Good prices obtained for the cotton crop 
of 1915 re-acted in such a way as to pro¬ 
duce far more interest in planting cotton 
in the spring of 1916, with heavy demand 
for fertilizers and materials. The high 
prices being obtained for grain and feed¬ 
ing stuffs also resulted in larger consump¬ 
tion of fertilizers in the north for the 
growing of this crop than ever before. 
Unfortunately, disastrous storms and 
damage from boll weevil created a re¬ 
stricting influence on the cotton crop, but 
notwithstanding this, demand for fertili¬ 
zer has been greater during the spring of 
1917 than for any year since the war 
started, although not so great as in 1914. 
Prices obtained during the past year for 
all kinds of farm produce have been in 
general such as to make the farmer pros¬ 
perous and also to make him use every 
means possible to increase his crop. 
We can say, then, that every influence 
has tended toward an increased consump¬ 
tion of fertilizer except the single one of 
increased price of fertilizer. This has 
kept the actual consumption below that of 
the normal years before the war. We all 
know that with increasing demand we 
may normally expect increased prices. 
This is likewise true where there is a short 
supply of the commodity. The reasons 
for the demand are pretty well known to 
all of us and we will now examine some 
of the causes leading to shortage in supply 
or increased cost of certain fertilizer ma¬ 
terials. 
POTASH 
Little need be said regarding potash. 
The wonderfully rich deposits existing in 
Germany had for years served practically 
as the world’s supply. The outbreak of 
war found the United States dependent 
upon such small stocks of German potash 
as had been left over from the preceding 
season, since only a comparatively small 
amount of the next year’s supplies had 
been delivered. There were, it is true, a 
limited number of by-products which had 
always been used, such as ashes and to¬ 
bacco dust. Practically the only way to 
handle this situation was by careful con¬ 
servation of such potash as the country 
had. Strenuous efforts have been made 
