PRICE OF FERTILISERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 July 1925, Page 11

PRICE OF FERTILISERS.

(To the Editor.) | Sir,—Mr. Connett, in his last letter, j suggests that we should stop writing | letters, as the correspondence has exl hausted its usefulness. In my opinion I its usefulness will be exhausted when | the commodity under review is being ’ handled by the farmers direct from the wharf on to their land, without the j trust first having as much as they can j out of it. The accomplishment of this : presents absolutely no difficulty. In the first place, the raw material is landed I on the wharf at a fixed price. Consequently there are no buying complica(tions to contend with, as is the case | with other ventures, such as the Bov I Co. Stores, Kennett Co., and so on. Also there are no marketing difficulties at I all. Y’ou simply hand out your finished article to the suppliers of the factories, and collect payment from milk cheques, as for stores, butter, etc. Each factory would require a committee for the purpose of finding out the special requirements of their particular nighbourhood. The works could mix what would be required and send it out, and thue do away with the huge waste that is going on by taking the : advice of the fertiliser trust and using what pays them best, not what suits the requirements of the land. For instance, the use of super-phosphat.es on Taranaki . soil is most detrimental, unless one is prepared to remedy the harm it does i by going to the further expense of liming jin proportion of two of lime to one of • super. Say we buy one ton of super for top dressing, £7 ss, plus putting it on the [land, £1 ss—£B IQs. We have got on [our land now monocalcis phosphate acid ; in its action, which must be rectified. * To counteract the acidity contained in 'one ton of super, it takes two tons of ! lime, which will cost us, at a low estimate, to distribute on the land, a further | £4 10s. We have now spent £l3, and j our land is no sweeter or no sourer than I before we started. After the first good rain our one ton of superphosphate, con-' ' taining 44 to 46 per cent, of monocalcic 1 phosphate, and costing us to buy and {remedy its detrimental acidity, £l3, is [either washed away on account of its [being water soluble, or reverts to its ■ previous state, tricalcic phosphate, soluble in soil acids. For our £l3 we have now on our land as much phosiphoric acid (which is the plant food [ \ve are buying) as is contained in half: a ton of raw Nauru phosphate, which we can buy for £1 2s, and I honestlybelieve that a co-op crushing plant could grind up and put on the land half a ton of Nauru for a small fraction of the £ll 18s, which sum the use of super by the present channels takes to accomplish the very same result, with perhaps a week’s start in favour of the super. In case Mr. Connett drops out of this discussion I would like to thank him for the assistance he has been to mo in making this most important matter public. With regard to railway freights, my

price list quotes me 5s a ton more than Mr. Connett quotes, which I can’t help. In any case it doesn’t alter the fact down the line a few miles. I also hope the Taranaki directors of the Farmers’ [Fertiliser Co. will not permit the company to pay the railway 33s per ton when they can get to New Plymouth via water, for 25s a ton, because if so, I think I can see where some of those missing dividends must have gone to. In case anyone should be prompted to make inquiries from the proper quarter re this matter, that is to say, our Agri- [ cultural Department, I am afraid they I will not get the encouragement they I might expect, but as the administrator of that department seems to require [from three to five judges to understand I sonic of his ideas 1 will not try to understand how it is that I had to write six letters before .1 could get an answer to my main question, that is to say, the price of Nauru phosphate.—l am, etc., J. FEAVER, Junr. Opunake, July 18.