RESULTS AND ADVANTAGES TO FARMERS FROM EXPERIMENTS OF BASIC

PLANT FOODS

Mr. WOODRUM. When would you say that farmers in any considerable number would begin to get the advantage of this type of fertilizer, get the results of your experiments?

Mr. McAMIS. In answering that I think you should consider, in the first place, that this material is going to be put on crops which normally have received very little fertilizer before. That is, it only goes to the farmer for his soil-conserving crop. That means a length of rotation of, we will say, 3 or 4 years. The effect of that fertilizer must come out over a period of years. Also, phosphate fertilizers. are relatively slow compared with direct additions of nitrogen. Of course, it is not to be expected that immediate results will come out. It is a permanent soil-improvement method.

Moreover, farmers generally have applied their fertilizers to soildepleting cash crops to produce immediate cash return, the amounts of fertilizer applied to soil-building crops being negligible. They are accustomed also to the use of low analysis mixed fertilizers which sell for a low price per ton but at a relatively high price per unit of plant food. They have not realized that the use of concentrated fertilizer would reduce the cost per unit of plant food due to savings. in freight, bagging, and hauling charges. To them concentrated fertilizers seem unduly high priced. Neither have they realized the long-time advantages of using concentrated phosphates applied directly to the soil-building crop in the rotation. Under these conditions it is not to be expected that farmers generally will change their fertilizer practices rapidly.

Mr. WOODRUM. When will it be produced in sufficient quantities and when will your experiments have been reduced to a sufficient degree of certainty and satisfaction so that the farmers in general will get the benefit from it?

Mr. McAMIS. Well, it must be tested first, of course. Under the provisions of the act, it must be tested with practical farmers, under practical conditions, which requires a longer season, a longer time, than a test, for instance, if we were to apply it to cotton or as a mixed fertilizer. By the latter we could get some immediate results; these results might have been permanent, in all probability would not have been. So that in view of this preliminary way by which this material must be first introduced into the Nation's agriculture, on a permanent basis, in the interest of the land, it will take some little time.

Mr. WOODRUM. How long will it take you, with your program, before you will be able to give the farmers the benefits from it?

Mr. McAMIS. That is an impossible thing to predict accurately. There are now many favorable indications throughout the country. But if we are going to obtain the full effect of the use of concentrated phosphates on soil-improving crops in sound farm-management procedure, and get farmers to adopt these practices, it is going to require several years.

Mr. WOODRUM. Then it is not a factor now?

COST AND DISTRIBUTION OF FERTILIZER PRODUCED AT PRESENT TIME

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. What is the dollar value of the fertilizer made available to the farmers to date?

Mr. McAMIS. You mean from this plant?

Mr. WIGGLESWORTH. Under the program here.

Mr. CURTIS. There has been distributed about 51,000 tons, valued, say, at $30 per ton.

Mr. WOODRUM. Over what period of time?

Mr. CURTIS. Since we started the plant.

Dr. H. A. MORGAN. Of course, most of that would come out slowly. Mr. WOODRUM. How many tons of all kinds of fertilizer have been distributed in that time?

Mr. CURTIS. By industry, you mean?

Mr. WOODRUM. Yes.

Mr. CURTIS. Oh, 6 or 8 million tons.

Mr. WOODRUM. Then the fertilizer that is being distributed now from this plant is not a factor in agriculture, thus far?

Mr. CURTIS. I would say it is a factor. It is not a factor if measured by the tonnage or in dollars and cents.

Mr. WOODRUM. I am figuring so far as a wide distribution to the farmers is concerned. Of course, anything that they get helps, and to that extent is a factor. When will it become a factor?

Mr. CURTIS. Just as fast as Mr. McAmis can get the farmers to take the stuff; as fast as he can create the demand for it. There are now 18,000 farmers cooperating directly in the program, and there are other farmers associated with them in the soil conservation groups.

Mr. TABER. Do they pay for the fertilizer that you furnish them? Mr. CURTIS. They pay the freight and the handling; they set up the program and pay the additional expenses necessary to carry out the program. They do not pay cash for the fertilizer.

Mr. LUDLOW. What is the average price to the consumer of this superphosphate fertilizer?

Mr. CURTIS. You mean in industry?

Mr. LUDLOW. I mean the farmer that wants to buy it; what does he have to pay for it?

Mr. CURTIS. He pays an average over the country of about $16 to $17 a ton for the low-grade material.

Mr. LUDLOW. I am speaking about this super fertilizer, this highpower fertilizer.

Mr. CURTIS. In carload lots, to buy it in the market could cost from $33 to $40, according to the community.

Mr. LUDLOW. As against something like $16 for the ordinary lowgrade fertilizer?

Mr. CURTIS. Yes.

Mr. McAMIS. At the present time most of that goes into complete fertilizer and is diluted for use on soil depleting crops, for inimediate cash return.

Mr. WOODRUM. You are not selling much of it?

Mr. CURTIS. We are not selling any of it. Nor does industry sell very much of it. They do not make it for sale, because they have so much difficulty trying to get the farmers to take it.

Mr. WOODRUM. Is it being distributed very much outside of the T. V. A. area?

Mr. McAMIS. Yes, sir.

We are, in one way or another, now testing

in more than half of the States.

Mr. WOODRUM. Will you put in the record a statement showing the distribution this year, the number of tons, and into what States it has gone?

Dr. H. A. MORGAN. We shall be very glad to do that.