Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 June 1916 — WHY EUROPE GROWS BIGGER FARM CROPS [ARTICLE]

WHY EUROPE GROWS BIGGER FARM CROPS

The European farmer uses 200 pounds of chemical fertilizer per acre of cultivated lands. The average use of fertilizers In the United States Is twentyeight pounds per acre. As a result the 'comparative crop yields per acre in bushels of European and American farms are: Wheat. Oats. Barley. Potatoes. Europe ....... 32 47 38 158 United States 15 29 25 .96 We must Increase our crop yields per acre if farming in this country is to pay and If we are to continue to feed ourselves without excessively high cost of living. To do so means using more chemical fertilizers, and at present price! or even normal before the war of both fertilizers and crops it

doesn’t pay to use more fertilizer ou small grains and general farm and forage crops. The increased crop yield won’t pay for the fertilizer used to produce It. In Europe the bigger crop yields pay because fertilizers are cheaper. The German farmer buys fertilizer for about half the price paid by the Amencan farmer. We pay twice a» much/ for potash to a German monopoly. We pay twice as much for nitrates or ammonia to a Chilean monoply. The nitrates are the most expensive element in fertilizers. Euro pean farmers are getting their supply from the air, made by water power. Our water powers, which would give us cheap fertilizers, are not used. We must use the resources of the nation, not lock them out of use.— R’oodrow Wilson.

Secretary Lane on Water Power. Under existing conditions, due largely to laws relating to the matter, a condition of stagnation exists, and water power resources are not being used. Existing law is not fitted for the uses to which it is put- ♦ * • There is that mystifying miracle of drawing nitrogen from the air for chemical use, which can be done only with great power, but is being done in Germany, Norway, Sweden, France, Switzerland and elsewhere, by which an inexhaustible substitute for the almost exhausted nitrates of Chile has been found. To increase the yield of our farms and to give us an independent and adequate supply of nitrogen for the explosives used in war we must set water wheels at work that will fix nitrogen in lime.—Franklin K. Lane, Secretary of the Interior.