Consumption of fertilizers in United States during fiscal years ended 1909, 1914, 1919, and 1924Continued The Department of Commerce states that, according to the data collected at the biennial census of manufactures, 1923, the establishments engaged primarily in the manufacture of fertilizers reported products valued at $183,088,751, an increase of 1.5 per cent as compared with 1921, the last preceding census year. The total for 1923 was made up of 7,237,164 tons of fertilizers, valued at $167,347,351, and other products, such as fish scrap, oil, grease, bone black, glue, sulphuric acid, and miscellaneous chemicals, to the value of $15,741,400. Of the 573 establishments reporting for 1923, 122 were located in Georgia, 64 in North Carolina, 51 in Virginia, 48 each in Maryland and South Carolina, 38 in Alabama, 28 in Pennsylvania, 22 in Ohio, 17 each in Florida and New Jersey, 13 in Illinois, 12 in California, 11 in Indiana, 10 in Tennessee, and the remaining 72 in 21 other States. In 1921 the industry was represented by 588 establishments, the decrease to 573 in 1923 being the net result of the loss of 89 establishments which had been included for 1921 and the addition of 74 new establishments. Of the 89 establishments lost to the industry, 37 were idle during the entire year, 35 had gone out of business before the beginning of 1923, 7 had been engaged primarily in the manufacture of fertilizers in 1921 but reported other commodities as their principal products in 1923 and were therefore classified in the appropriate industries, and 10 reported products valued at less than $5,000 in 1923. (No data are tabulated at the biennial censuses for establishments with products under $5,000 in value.) The southern district (the region lying south of the northern boundaries of North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, and comprising in addition to the four States named, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas) reported 320 establishments for 1923, with a total production of 3,665,153 tons of fertilizers, or 50.6 per cent of the total for the industry. This percentage is comparable with 42.9 per cent for 1921, 52 per cent for 1919, and 57.4 per cent for 1914. 1 A minus sign (-) denotes decrease. Not including salaried officers and employees or proprietors and firm members. 1 The figures for 1921 include data for fertilizers to the value of $7,817,861 manufactured as subsidiary products by establishments classified in other industries, and the product of 18 establishments with products valued at less than $5,000, aggregating $54,016. The figures for 1923 as given in this table relate only to the products of the fertilizer industry proper. tons. Includes concentrated phosphates: 1923, 16,953 tons; 1921, 18,207 U. S. D. A.-10-1-26 Includes miscellaneous chemicals, pyrite cinder, poultry and stock feeds, etc. Fertilizer manufacture: Summary for the United States, 1859 to 1923 Mixed Fertilizers The indiscriminate mixing of fertilizing materials is not a safe practice. This is mainly because of two facts: (1) When certain materials are mixed chemical changes take place which result in a loss of a valuable constituent, as when lime is mixed with guano nitrogen escapes, or in a change of a constituent, to a less available form, as when lime is mixed with superphosphates the phosphoric acid is made less soluble; and (2) mixtures of certain materials, as for example potash salts and Thomas slag, are likely to harden or cake and thus become difficult to distribute if kept some time after being mixed. Diagram indicating what fertilizer materials may and may not be safely mixed. The dark lines unite materials which should never be mixed, the double lines those which should be applied immediately after mixing, and single lines those which may be mixed at any time. |