to our own soils that already suffer for want of phosphorus, it
would make possible the production of nearly a billion dollars'
worth of corn above what these soils can ever produce without the
addition of phosphorus. And our phosphate is only a part of the
phosphate imported into Europe. They also produce rock phosphate
from European mines, and great quantities of slag phosphate from
their phosphatic iron ores.

"They feed their own crops and large amounts of imported food
stuffs, and utilize all fertilizing materials thus provided for the
improvement of their own lands. Legume crops are grown in great
abundance and are often plowed under to help the land.

"Do you wonder why the wheat yield in England is more than thirty
bushels per acre while that of the United States is less than
fourteen bushels? Because England produces only fifty million
bushels of wheat, while she imports two hundred million bushels of
wheat, one hundred million bushels of corn, nearly a billion pounds
of oil cake, and other food stuffs, from which large quantities of
manure are made; and, in addition to this, England imports and uses
much phosphate and other commercial plant food materials.

"Germany imports great quantities of wheat, corn, oil cake, and
phosphates, and thus enriches her cultivated soil, and Germany's
principal export is two billion pounds of sugar, which contains no
plant food of value, but only carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, secured
from air and water by the sugar beet.

"Denmark produces four million bushels of wheat, imports five
million bushels of wheat, fifteen million bushels of corn, fifteen