Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 83.djvu/221

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this business. Methods of manufacture have been improved, and the scale of operations has been increased greatly. New railroads have been built and old ones extended, until now there are about 2,000 miles of railroads, most of which have no other use than to serve the nitrate trade. But perhaps most important of all has been the vigorous campaign to advertise the merits of nitrate as a fertilizer. Tests have proved that nitrates are about the most effective fertilizer known for such crops as vegetables, sugar beets, and some of the cereals. To help increase the demand for this use particularly, representatives are maintained in every important agricultural region by the Chilean Nitrate Committee, and advertisements which are a part of this propaganda appear in agricultural journals in all parts of the world. Importations by the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States have been and still are increasing rapidly, while smaller amounts go to widely scattered markets.

The exports of nitrates in 1830 are said to have been about 8,300 tons. At the time of the Peruvian War, fifty years later, the amount had increased to 226,000 tons yearly—or less than the amount that two establishments might turn out now. Since 1880 the exports have reached enormous proportions. The million-ton mark was passed in 1890; almost a million and a half tons were shipped in 1900; and in 1911 the exports were but little short of two and a half million tons. To take care of this greatly increased demand, plant after plant has been built, until now more than 100 are in operation, several of which can produce in a month more than the whole exportation amounted to in 1830. Lands which were offered for sale a dozen years ago could not now be bought for ten times the figure quoted then. Shares of stock