A NEW FERTILISER

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 205, 24 May 1919, Page 10

A NEW FERTILISER

The January issue of "Chambers!s Journal" dontains the following particulars of a new fertiliser:—"Fertilisers will form one of tho most pressing needs of the world in the future, unless new discoveries put an end to the present shortage. Hence the manufacture in Italy of a substanco known as 'tetraphosphate,' of which tho fertilising qualities are said to equal those of superphosphate, is of particular interest. The process 'of manufacture is a simple one, the natural phosphate rock being ground to powder, and roasted in a furnace for several hours at a temperature of from six hundred to eight hundred degrees centigrade. Before being roasted the ground rook is mixed with G per cent, of a reactive agent consisting of equal parts of cnlcium, sodium, and magnesium carbonate with a smnll proportion of sodium sulphate. The resulting concentrate contains 15 to 21 per cent, of phosphoric acid, and is reduced in strength for practical use by the addition of sand or dry earth. A special commission appointed by the Italian Minister of Agriculture has pronounced the fertilising qualifies of totraphosphate to be at least equal to those of superphosphate, and the substance 'has the additional advantages of being free from causticity, acidity, and deterioration. Moreover, the' cost of the plant needed for its production is only about 15 per cent, of that required for an equal output of superphosphate, while the process can be advantageously applied to minerals containing only low percentages of phosphorus. Tho process has been patented, and is being exploited in Italy and other countries. According to the Canadian Trade Commissioner at Milan, eleven plants, with an annual- output of about fifty thousand lions, aro being operated in Italy, while four more are under construction. Another, near Luxor, on the Nile, is turning out twenty thousand tons, a yt/ar, and at Kaseir, 011 the Hed Sea. where, a plant is being erected for working a very rich local rock, the yearly outturn is expected to reach two hundred thousand tons."

"The character of the builder of the now world is of supreme importance, for lie may build by spoliation and light /'by the principle of the dog-fight, simply to decide who is top dog, or he may use those qualities of generosity, of prido and fellow-feeling in which ho is so richly endowed for the benefit of all. And in the main for this good building, in preference to bad, we must rolv on the worker's simplicity of outlook. 'Cards on the table' is already tho mot d'ordre of the emerging class. It is the way in which a man of simplicity naturally prefers to do business,"—Mi6S M. P. Willcocks.