RAW GROUND PHOSPHATE AS A FERTILISER.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 15 April 1922, Page 3

RAW GROUND PHOSPHATE AS A FERTILISER.

During the war, owing to the grave shoitage of sulphuric acid for the manufacture of superphosphate, strenuous weTe made, particularly in the United States, to popularise raw ground phosphate as a fertiliser. Statistics which have just come to hand prove to what a limited extent this campaign succeeded. Despite all the propaganda devoted to popularising the direct use of ground phosphate, the Quantity consumed in the whole pf the United States in 1920 was 0n1y'72,891 tons, against 48,317 tons in 1914. It remains to be added that these figures are less impressive when they are compared with- the total consumption of phosphates— ~

1914_Total sales, 2,734,043 tons; directly used as ground phosphate, 48,317 tons.

1920—Total sales, 4,103,982 tons; directly used as ground, phosphate, 72,801 tons.

Expressed as a percentage the proportion is actually the same, the percentage of the total sales used direct .as groffhd phosphate in 1914 and 1921 being 1.77 per cent.