OCR Text |
Show SOMETHING FOR NOTHING. In Europe the phosphorus deposits ar carefully guarded as storehouses of future national prosperity and support. sup-port. Tho laws of Norway, for Instance, In-stance, make it almost Impossible which means unprolitable to s.nl the precious phosphate rock, there discovered, dis-covered, out of tho country, it Is kept at home by legislative enactment to preserve the fertility of the- Norwegian Nor-wegian farming lands. lo the United States, to the com trary, the gTeat bods of phosphate rock are recklessly exploited for the benefit of the Individual and olteti foreign owners. The greatest of agricultural ag-ricultural experts estimate that the total prodactlou of phosphate rock In America is not greater thun would bo required to renew the phosphorus an- nually drained from the Boll by tho I erops. Hut. two-thirds of it aro regit- I larly exported, sent abroad, most of it to Germany, for lb enrichment of German farmers and the ultimate Impoverishment Im-poverishment of Ainerlcuu farms. WTicn on rquirts an explanation of why tho ancient fields along thrt Rhln ralae double tho wheat cut on our own new lands, he may find it In ta hedi of Oerma nfrelghters loaded with phoapbaw rock from Florida. By way of paying for this most precious and necessary of natural products, tho shrewd Germans, smiling smil-ing in their alcoves Bnd over u few cas.B filled with wa.stn bits of wood and nnjtal, akllfully carve. I nd painted, toys and glmcrackn given their sole value by the skill and Ingenuity In-genuity of German mechanics. In oth-tT oth-tT words, they exchango for a million tons of an extremely limited and absolutely abso-lutely eaucntlal natural product the work of mature and slow time something some-thing that man cannot duplicate or replace & million gross of Juniplng-Jwks Juniplng-Jwks and Noah's arks, products of cheap human labor, containing nothing noth-ing intrinsically valuable, serving no useful purpose, caxy to duplicate Infinitely In-finitely and forever. From "Phosphorus "Phos-phorus and Jumping Jacks." in Technical Tech-nical World Magazine. |