Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/333

Rh would be given the benefit of a lease upon terms like that above suggested. What has been said in respect to oil applies also to government gas lands.

Under the proposed oil legislation, especially where the government oil lands embrace an entire oil field, as in many cases, prospectors, operators, consumers and the public can be benefited by the adoption of the leasing system. The prospector can be protected in the very expensive work that necessarily antedates discovery; the operator can be protected against impairment of the productiveness of the wells which he has leased by reason of control of drilling and pumping of other wells too closely adjacent, or by the prevention of improper methods as employed by careless, ignorant or irresponsible operators in the same field which result in the admission of water to the oil sands; while, of course, the consumer will profit by whatever benefits the prospector or operator receives in reducing the first cost of the oil.

Phosphorus is one of the three essentials to plant growth, the other elements being nitrogen and potash. Of these three, phosphorus is by all odds the scarcest element in nature. It is easily extracted in useful form from the phosphate rock, and the United States contains the greatest known deposits of this rock in the world. They are found in Wyoming, Utah and Florida, as well as in South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. The government phosphate lands are confined to Wyoming, Utah and Florida. Prior to March 4, 1909, there were 4,000,000 acres withdrawn from agricultural entry on the ground that the land covered phosphate rock. Since that time, 2,322,000 acres of the land thus withdrawn was found not to contain phosphate in profitable quantities, while 1,678,000 acres was classified properly as phosphate lands. During this administration there has been withdrawn and classified 437,000 acres, so that to-day there is classified as phosphate-rock land 2,115,000 acres.

This rock is most important in the composition of fertilizers to improve the soil, and as the future is certain to create an enormous demand throughout this country for fertilization, the value to the public of such deposits as these can hardly be exaggerated. Certainly with respect to these deposits a careful policy of conservation should be followed. Half of the phosphate of the rock that is mined in private fields in the United States is exported. As our farming methods grow better the demand for the phosphate will become greater, and it must be arranged so that the supply shall equal the needs of the country.

It is uncertain whether the placer or lode law applies to the government phosphate rock. There is, therefore, necessity for some definite and well-considered legislation on this subject, and in aid of such