we have consistently had our own soil improvement committee, working diligently in every possible way, sometimes spending considerable sums in advertising, and things of that sort.

Mr. BIDDLE. To use more 3-8-3?

Mr. BRAND. No; we have been trying hard to get them to build up and use even 6-12-6.

Mr. BIDDLE. More of your mixed fertilizer?

Mr. BRAND. And 10-15-10.

Mr. BIDDLE. More of your mixed fertilizer?

Mr. BRAND. The whole agronomic situation calls for the use of balanced fertilizer, just like feeding animals calls for the use of balanced feeds, there is no difference in the principles involved.

Mr. BIDDLE. I am sorry to interrupt you so long.

Representative JENKINS. Upon which of these three ingredients do you make the most money?

Mr. BRAND. Well, in mixed fertilizers, which is what we sell mostly, and in the form in which fully 70 percent of the fertilizer of the United States is used, you can't tell which you make the most money on. earnings record has been a very checkered record.

Our

Representative JENKINS. What I mean is this, if you would make more money on the phosphates, you would naturally run it up from 3-8-3 to 3-9-3, wouldn't you?

Mr. BRAND. We try to sell the farmer what is best for his farm, within reason, and we are not trying to just sell him phosphate, because that is the thing that we manufacture particularly, you see the mixed fertilizer manufacturer is-phosphate is the only chemical compound that most mixed fertilizer producers in quantity at least, produce themselves.

The nitrogen carriers and the potash carriers are purchased from the producers of those materials, so that we would naturally just as you seem to have in your mind, promote the use of phosphate even in advance of the others, but we have been taught so long that we must have a balanced crop feeding, that we do not try to get it out in front. In fact, we created a phosphate institute, and it only lasted about 3 years, because of the feeling that we were not doing justice to the whole picture by getting out and pressing for one particular plant food. Representative JENKINS. Dr. Cooper's crowd, and I have every respect for anybody helping agriculture, because it is a big business, Dr. Cooper's crowd apparently are stressing lime and phosphate, lime and phosphate.

Mr. BRAND. Yes.

Representative JENKINS. That is their combination.
Mr. BRAND. Yes.

Representative JENKINS. Now, then, they are building, if they are working in opposition to your organization, they are building the T. V. A. up on phosphate, because there is plenty of lime everywhere. Now, then, is there any financial disadvantage to you that you don't build up lime and phosphate, too?

Mr. BRAND. As I said, some of our people would be greatly advantaged by this building up of phosphate, but the farmer will not in the end be advantaged, because under our method of rotation, and farm

management, each time you emphasize one plant food to the exclusion of the others, you are depleting the soil of the other two, and if you use phosphate long enough, or put phosphate alone on long enough, you will deplete the nitrogen and the potash, so that they will be the deficiencies, and your crop production will go down.

Representative JENKINS. They argue this, that they use the phosphate, and the phosphate is the one fertilizer that will produce legumes, and the legumes will bring the nitrogen free, and if the farmer rotates his crops accordingly, that will answer your question, that they don't need nitrogen.

Mr. BRAND. That is a fine scheme, but they haven't been able to do that. And I started my work in the Department of Agriculture 35 years ago next month, on the clovers, and they haven't been able to get those rotations started yet.

Mr. BIDDLE. You mean that the plan would be better if the farmer would do it, but he won't, and therefore you have to sell him what he will take?

Mr. BRAND. You have got to give him the commercial plant food to fill in these years and years of improving our farm-management scheme.

Representative JENKINS. The principal task before nearly every farmer is to make a living, and he hasn't the time to prepare his farm for some other man to come along in 40 years and make a living, he has got to make it now.

Mr. BRAND. Especially with our tenant system, that is very true. I don't want to find fault with Dean Cooper's statement in prínciple, we are in agreement on that, that if you could get everybody to rotate, and if you could get clover to grow in the South, we wouldn't be able to sell them nitrogen, but they can't get it to grow, so they ought to buy the nitrogen.

Representative JENKINS. What is the reason that they can't get it to grow?

Mr. BRAND. Because their soils don't have the amount of lime that is required, we furnish most of the lime in our fertilizer, to the southern farmer, and we furnish in superphosphate, about 800,000 tons annually of calcium oxide, that is about one-third of the total purchased.

Representative JENKINS. Why can't you-you talk about nitrogen carriers, and so forth, why can't you carry-I suppose that you can chemically do it, but what is the reason if it isn't a chemical reason, why don't you use lime as a carrier?

Mr. BRAND. We do. Of course, as I said, 50 percent is calcium sulplate roughly in superphosphate, that is useful for the lime that the plant takes up as a plant food, that is not useful to correct the acidity of the soil, so that this additional application is generally speaking not for plant food, but for correcting soil acidity, and we do use a great quantity of lime for that purpose.

Representative JENKINS. You said in these 3-8-3 combinations, that you had 20 pounds of each.

Mr. BRAND. Twenty pounds is one unit, so that 3 times 20, and you multiply each of them.

Representative JENKINS. Sixty pounds is in a bag?

Mr. BRAND. That is 60 pounds per ton, of actual phosphoric acid, or nitrogen, or potash, in terms of K2O, as the case may be.

MARKETING OF MIXED FERTILIZERS

Representative JENKINS. Why do you insist on selling fertilizer in hundred pound bags?

Mr. BRAND. We don't, we sell it in 100-pound bags, 125-pound bags, and 167-pound bags, and we used to sell it in 200-pound bags, but it has gotten down pretty much to 100- and 125-pound bags because they are of a size and weight that people can handle without breaking their backs.

Representative JENKINS. The large percentage of the weight of an ordinary bag of fertilizer is just simply carrying material, and has no nutrition for the soil?

Mr. BRAND. It is just like the milk can carries a lot of water, it is just exactly the same.

Mr. BIDDLE. I understand that the total farm bill for fertilizer is about $160,000,000 a year?

Mr. BRAND. It has ranged from as low as I think from $87,000,000 in 1932 to $225,000,000 at the top.

Mr. BIDDLE. How much of that is represented in the cost of selling phosphate, is that $50,000,000?

Mr. BRAND. No; well, phosphate is about 50 percent by weight of the total fertilizer of the United States, but the unit value of phosphates is lower than nitrogen and potash. If the unit values were the same, your statement would be approxmately correct.

Mr. BIDDLE. What do you think of the farmer mixing his own phosphate, his own fertilizer?

Mr. BRAND. That is done, and whenever our prices are not right, that is just what the farmer does.

Mr. BIDDLE. All I mean is that a large value of your industry is invested in mixing and selling, and sales talk and 40,000 or 50,000 agents selling to the farmer.

Mr. BRAND. Fifty-one thousand we have on our list.

Mr. BIDDLE. And getting commissions on the amount sold?

Mr. BRAND. Yes.

Mr. BIDDLE. If the farmer mixed that himself, if he could be persuaded to, he would save an awful lot of money, wouldn't he? Mr. BRAND. You might say that the farmer should make his own shoes or anything else.

Mr. BIDDLE. I might, but I am not.

Mr. BRAND. Or weave his own cloth, and it is just as impracticable to get good mixtures and utilize the materials that are available, if you make it at home, only certain materials are available for use, and the minute that your factory mixes it, it brings a lot of other raw materials into use, which help to keep down the price of fertilizer, but if you are going to mix on the farm exclusively, it is confined to just those things that are simple enough for the farmer to mix at home, you see, and so he can economically do that, but it is economically much better for the nation and the world if we can make it possible to mix these other things which are not suitable for home mixing.

Home mixing is always done, and I used to be a home mixer myself, but after the hide came off some of my horses and a few things like that

Mr. BIDDLE. Don't you think that home mixing might be encouraged?

Mr. BRAND. There is constant encouragement, and the only thing that really encourages it is when fertilizer prices are too high, and then the farmer goes to it.

Senator FRAZIER. Aren't they always too high?

Mr. BRAND. They talk about it, but we judge more by what they do than by what they say.

Senator FRAZIER. Well, take your prices of farm products, this year, how are you going to judge?

Mr. BRAND. The last figure that I happened to have in my mind is the September price index, 95 for farm products, and 99 for fertilizers, and most of the time we have been well below, even as much as 25 percent below the index number of farm products at the farm. Mr. BIDDLE. Do you agree, that if there was any way of persuading the farmer to mix more at home, it would be excellent?

Mr. BRAND. No; I think that he is wasting his time, and he can't do it as well, and I think that it would ultimately result, if many of them did it, in raising the price, by throwing out of use many materials which can be used in the factory, that can't be used on the farm. I think that he would ultimately injure himself rather than help himself.

I think that it works out exactly right as it is, when prices of mixed fertilizers get out of line, he goes and buys the material and mixes it himself, and then the fertilizer manufacturer finds that out, and he ameliorates his prices. Most of the time his prices are below parity, anyway.

Mr. BIDDLE. If the farmer can't mix his fertilizers, and you can, it is cheaper for him to buy it from you mixed?

Mr. BRAND. Yes. You could go to the shoemaker on the corner, and have him make you a pair of shoes, but they wouldn't be as good and cheap as some that Regal makes for you.

I have got something here on facilities, and capacities, and their distribution by States. I don't know what your rules are, Mr. Chairman, but I would like to have your record show, in this hearing, a table showing the location and distribution and character of fertilizer factories.

Mr. BIDDLE. You put in anything that you want.

Mr. BRAND. Don't go that far, Mr. General Counsel.

Mr. BIDDLE. As long as you don't read it, put in anything that you want.

Mr. BRAND. I ask that for this reason. I have had at considerable expense a very excellent map made showing the location of all of the fertilizer plants by classification in the United States, the location of the phosphate fields, and a small map showing the location of consumption.

When I had these made, I had an extra 1,500 made, with the thought that if this committee would permit it, I would like to sup

ply a sufficient number of copies for the number of copies of the hearings that are to be printed.

Mr. BIDDLE. I don't know how many copies will be printed, and I don't know whether we would want to print the map, we have a good many exhibits.

Mr. BRAND. I will furnish it absolutely folded, ready to slip in. Mr. BIDDLE. We will take it now as an exhibit, and then later on we will consult you about additional copies.

(Whereupon the document above referred to was marked "Exhibit No. 480" and received in evidence.)

EXTENT OF AMERICAN PHOSPHATE RESOURCES

Representative JENKINS. I saw an article in the paper last night by somebody claiming to be an expert on phosphate, stating that there were enough phosphate deposits in the United States at the present rate of consumption, to last 2,100 years. Have you got the figures on that?

Mr. BRAND. Mr. Jenkins, I have in my hand the answer, if I may, merely because I have arranged these in the order to go with my mental plan of my statement; I would like to lead right up to your question.

Representative JENKINS. All right.

Mr. BRAND. First of all I would like to offer as table 1 the estimated reserves of phosphate rock in the United States.

Mr. BIDDLE. Just a minute. Suppose that we mark all of these and you can refer to them by exhibit numbers.

Mr. BRAND. They are marked "Exhibits A to F."

(The documents above referred to were marked "Exhibits 481 to 486, inclusive," for identification.)

Acting Chairman SCHWARTZ. What is the source of this information, tabulated as to the estimated reserves of phosphate rock?

Mr. BRAND. Each sheet shows at the bottom, Senator, the source, or in the text accompanying it.

Acting Chairman SCHWARTZ. There is nothing shown at the bottom as to the reserves in Western States.

Mr. BRAND. Well, if you will just let me get rid of this little job of clerical work that I am trying to do on these exhibits, I will try to answer you.

As the Senator knows, the exploratory work in the intermountain territory has in certain cases, like Idaho, gone a great deal further than it has in other sections.

Mr. BIDDLE. You have given us exhibits A, B, C, D, E, and F. Now, would you answer Congressman Jenkins' question about how long it will last us?

Mr. BRAND. Presently we are using about 3,000,000 tons of rock a year.

Mr. BIDDLE. Does that include export, also?

Mr. BRAND. Of which roughly 1,000,000 tons is exported.

Mr. BIDDLE. Where does that come from, Florida?

Mr. BRAND. It comes almost exclusively from Florida, except that a little goes out from the West.

So that with reserves, explored reserves of high grade-you have got to take this into account, the Geological Survey, as Dr. Mansfield