Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/587

Rh of leguminous plants, dissociating the nitrogen of the atmosphere and converting it through the plant to the renovation of the soil, coupled with artificial sources, give assurance of adequate supply of that necessary element, while discoveries in science promise yet greater abundance in the conversion of the secondary products of gas plants to fertilizers.

The last element which is necessary, potash, of course exists in great abundance throughout many sections of the country, but the solubility of potash capable of being assimilated by plants and the cost of deriving it from its original source in the rocks, have rendered the country for the time being largely dependent on the Stassfurt Mines of Saxony, where the existence of a pan underlying the salt in which the potash has accumulated, has rendered that place the source of this necessary element in fertilizers at the lowest cost. It is, however, hardly to be doubted that in the great range of alkali soils and deserts extending from British Columbia around the circle far into Texas, deposits of potash will soon be discovered which can be worked. Permanent potash springs are very numerous, and in the arid country it may be assumed that while the potash may have leached down to a moderate distance, it has not been carried away. A strong company, with abundant capital, under competent engineers, has lately been organized for following the surface indications of potash by boring at many points.

In a broad and general way it may be safely affirmed that the great farming States of the Mississippi Valley which have been named, will produce this year within a fraction of all the wheat now required for the consumption of the people of the United States, and that by improvement in the methods of agriculture their product will keep even with the increase of population without calling for more land. Outside this area are vast sections from which the quantity of wheat now available for export may be derived. In these sections the intensive system has not yet taken the place of the former methods of cultivation. It may be safely affirmed that Montana, Washington, Oregon, California and other sections of the Northwest and of the Pacific coast, can produce all the wheat that Europe can possibly pay for during the present generation. It is only a question of price. Our crop now being marketed officially estimated at 704,000,000 is probably 750,000,000 bushels or about 95,000,000 quarters. The prevailing drought did not come until the winter wheat was harvested and the spring wheat fairly secure; it will reduce the com or maize crop. At a dollar a bushel or at thirty-two shillings per quarter in Mark Lane, we could add 20,000,000 quarters in a year or two if we had the farm laborers to do the work not yet done by machinery.