will tell you if you call him before you, has thus far indicated only what are known as the proven reserves.

Mr. BIDDLE. Let us take the proven so as to be safe.

Mr. BRAND. The proven reserves are those of high grade, and those are the ones that are shown in table 1 of this exhibit, that I marked "A," but which the reporter has marked "Exhibit 481." Mr. BIDDLE. Does that include the western reserves?

Mr. BRAND. That includes the reserves in Idaho and Wyoming and Montana and Utah.

Mr. BIDDLE. And those four States hold the chief source of reserve? Mr. BRAND. That is correct.

Mr. BIDDLE. Now, can you now manufacture and ship phosphate from those States commercially to the Southeast, and the Southern States?

Mr. BRAND. No.

Mr. BIDDLE. Therefore those reserves could hardly be considered as reserves for the phosphate needs of the Southern States, which use 75 percent of the country's phosphate, that is right?

Mr. BRAND. That is absolutely right from an economic standpoint. Mr. BIDDLE. So that our only reserves from the point of view of 75 percent of the needs of the country are in Florida and Tennessee, commercially speaking?

Mr. BRAND. Yes.

Now, as to Tennessee, I have just returned from the hearing at Muscle Shoals. The testimony of Mr. Allison Webster, who is the man who has done most of the survey work there, who has grown up with the industry in Tennessee, is that the Tennessee reserves are of a general magnitude of about 3,000,000,000 tons, instead of the usual one-hundred-and-some-odd millions, that are mentioned.

He arrives at that by a survey of the different areas, and then to be absolutely conservative, he cuts down the number of square miles containing phosphate reserves to about one-tenth of the total, and assumes that the 600 square miles where they have the test holes, and where the operating companies have operated so that they know the phosphoric-acid content, contain approximately 500,000,000 tons per hundred square miles, or approximately 3,000,000,000 tons. Mr. BIDDLE. All commercially available?

Mr. BRAND. Yes.

Mr. BIDDLE. And you think that the figures are more accurate than the figures of those experts who have stated that it is nearer 500,000,000 tons?

Mr. BRAND. The Tennessee figures were basically the result of a survey of 1915, and already several years ago more had been taken out than those of the particular areas in question, more was taken out than was given in that survey.

Mr. BIDDLE. Who does this gentleman represent?

Mr. BRAND. He is a consulting engineer, in the Tennessee field, who is always consulted by the commercial companies when they want to buy phosphate rock.

So that there is in Tennessee a vastly greater supply than we have in the past counted.

4

Mr. BIDDLE. Then you see no desirability of any program for preserving or conserving our phosphate deposits?

Mr. BRAND. I am a conservationist, and I think that we ought to use everything that we have, carefully, all of the time.

Mr. BIDDLE. And you think that we are now carefully using our phosphate deposits?

Mr. BRAND. I will answer that by an illustration. At the moment when I was in Tennessee this week, the Federal Chemical Co. of Louisville were working over for the third time a part of their deposits, and they were getting more out of this working of the identical ground, than they got out of both of the previous workings.

Mr. BIDDLE. Your answer then is, yes; we are carefully preserving them?

Mr. BRAND. No; we can do better, but we are doing a better job all of the time. We are now working it the third time and getting more than we got out of it the previous two times.

Senator FRAZIER. What do you mean by "more"; do you mean more material?

Mr. BRAND. I mean if they got 100 tons in the first time, and 200 tons in the second working, they are getting over 400 tons now. Senator FRAZIER. Of what?

Mr. BRAND. Of useable phosphate rock.

Mr. BIDDLE. Then we are exhausting it a little faster than we were before?

Mr. BRAND. We are working over again the old ponds, that with our cruder methods before we couldn't utilize effectively.

Mr. BIDDLE. Having skimmed the surface, we have to look farther down?

Mr. BRAND. We skimmed once, and then we skimmed again, and then we are going down and getting more than we got before.

Representative JENKINS. That is due to modern methods?

Mr. BRAND. Yes; and all of that sort of thing, and that is where the blast furnace and the electric furnace processes are going to help to elongate still further the life of our phosphate supplies, because they are either nodulized, or sintered and briquetted, and then they can use these lower grade phosphates in the furnace, thus indefinitely extending the life of our deposits.

Mr. Jenkins, it is my honest belief, from all of the years that I have been working in this matter, and all of the testimony that I have heard everywhere, that we have enough not for 2,000 or 2,100 years, but we have enough for three or four thousand years.

Mr. BIDDLE. That is a question for the Pope committee, who are especially organized for that, so that I think that we might pass on. Mr. BRAND. What I said of Tennessee is also true of Florida. They used to only consider it workable with 15 feet of overburden, and now they are working it with 70 feet of overburden, and they are getting deeper and deeper and finding that the lime rock under the phosphate bed is charged with paying quantities of phosphoric acid, so that it is almost indefinite, but as I said, we used to think that our forests were inexhaustible, but they weren't, and we are now import

ing great quantities of wood and paper pulp from some other countries, so that we ought to save the supply.

Mr. BIDDLE. Before you go to the next thing

Mr. BRAND. I want to introduce these.

Mr. BIDDLE. They have been introduced already.

COSTS OF MIXED FERTILIZERS

Let me ask you something which bore on a previous question. Could you tell me the average length of haul on mixed fertilizer? Mr. BRAND. The average length of haul?

Mr. BIDDLE. Yes.

Mr. BRAND. We usually consider that the average length of haul is a haul that would cost about $2.56.

Mr. BIDDLE. Per what?

Mr. BRAND. Per ton. That was before the two recent increases in freight rate; so that we will say somewhere between that and $3 a ton. Mr. BIDDLE. What is the amount of transportation costs which would be applicable to transportation of filler materials?

Mr. BRAND. Well, the filler question is a difficult question, because the amount of filler varies so greatly, in different mixtures.

Mr. BIDDLE. Take 3-8-3?

Mr. BRAND. Well, 3-8-3 would probably have, or might have, how many pounds of filler-500 or 600?

Mr. BIDDLE. What is the amount of bagging costs allocatable to the bagging of the filler material only?

Mr. BRAND. The cost of bagging varies greatly; the cost of bagging a ton varies from about $1.50 to $2.50, according to the quality of the bagging, and another factor, of for instance, if using a cheapsecond-hand bag, it is less and if you are using an expensive jute, or paper lined bag or cotton bag it is still higher.

Mr. BIDDLE. Could you indicate the amount of profits made by mixers and middlemen, which would be allocatable to sales of filler materials?

Mr. BRAND. No; because fertilizer prices are arrived at per unit, and then the administrative and other costs are added, as a whole, to that, and the unit price of materials is the chief cost of the fertilizer; I should say roughly 60 to 65 percent of the cost of fertilizer is the materials that are bought to put in it.

Mr. BIDDLE. What is the origin of this ton of materials? Do you know how it started?

Mr. BRAND. Well, everybody wants to buy by the ton.

Mr. BIDDLE. Was the ton completed in the original formula, or did you have to add the formula of the percentage of the fillers, to make it up?

Mr. BRAND. No; experimentally, and by experience over a long period of years, these various ratios have been worked out, the relationship between the nitrogen and phosphate and potash have been worked out, and the poundage required to meet those ratios of a given material, is added up for the three, and then the amount of filler is added that would bring that to a ton for sales purposes.

Of course, you realize that with the more concentrated materials the danger of having to put in filler is greater than for the less concentrated, but relatively speaking, not much filler is used, because of the carrying.

Mr. BIDDLE. Wasn't the original material short of a ton?

Mr. BRAND. No; some few people, competitively, have offered for sale, we will say, 1,620 pounds, containing the amount of plant food that was contained in a total ton.

Mr. BIDDLE. And filled the balance with mixture to make the total ton?

Mr. BRAND. No; they would use that as a selling point to cut their prices, but practically speaking, that is very little done, that is almost-well, it just isn't practicable, because the farmer wants to buy a known unit of measurement, just as we all want to buy a yard of cloth, we don't want to buy less than a yard just because it is a little stronger or something of that sort. That is the way that is worked out.

Representative JENKINS. One other question there; right at the opening of your statement you said something to the effect that the activities of T. V. A. had been very disastrous to your industry. Now you come on and you say that your industry is so much bigger than the activities of T. V. A. that it is infinitesimal; you must have had in mind that it was disastrous in some localities, or did you mean that it was disastrous to your industry generally?

Mr. BRAND. I wouldn't hold you precisely to that word; I know what you mean; and I think it is demonstrable. I have letters in my possession from operators in that territory, who are suffering from it, that in such territories, particularly as the State of Kentucky, where the quantity is equivalent to 82,000 tons of regular commercial material, that is a very serious competitive factor.

EFFECTS OF FERTILIZERS ON SOIL

I realize that the farmer is supposed to use this only on soil-improving crops, but the testimony that comes to me, and I have no particular way of checking it, is that many farmers, at least, are not using it on soil conserving crops, but are using it on their soil-depleting and cash crops.

Mr. BIDDLE. Let me point that out; isn't it true that 85 percent of all of the fertilizers sold are sold for five cash crops-corn, cotton, wheat, potatoes, and tobacco?

We

Mr. BRAND. That is substantially correct, because I remember all of those figures are the result of a survey that we made in 1928. are repeating that survey now, and these are substantially correct. Mr. BIDDLE. The sale of commercial fertilizers-they are used, are they not, to promote the single cash crop system without crop rotation and soil-conserving practices in the South?

Mr. BRAND. No; I wouldn't say that that was fair; I would say that that is taking a one-sided view; that is the publicity that would have you believe that calcium metaphosphate is already

Mr. BIDDLE. Isn't it true in the South that fertilizers are used entirely for cash crops, without rotation?

Mr. BRAND. In the South, Mr. General Counsel, the necessities of the farmer are such that he has got to have cash, and he can't go into 4-year rotations or he would starve to death.

Mr. BIDDLE. Mr. Jenkins brought that out, but it is a fact, isn't it, for whatever reason?

Mr. BRAND. It is a fact which the fertilizer industry hadn't created.

Mr. BIDDLE. I didn't say that. Don't think that I am impugning the fertilizer industry; I am talking about the facts of the South; 94 percent of the fertilizer sold in the South is for cash crops, without rotation?

Mr. BRAND. It isn't quite safe to say "without rotation." Rotation practices are not well developed.

Mr. BIDDLE. Insufficient rotation.

Mr. BRAND. That is right.

Mr. BIDDLE. And that therefore the use of the fertilizer in that way is continually depleting the soil of the South?

Mr. BRAND. Not if they use a sufficient application, you see.

Mr. BIDDLE. Without rotation?

Mr. BRAND. Even without rotation.

Mr. BIDDLE. You don't think rotation helps it?

Mr. BRAND. I certainly do; and it is a substitute and over the years we will work out our rotational practices so that it will be possible to do away to some extent with commercial fertilizer. wouldn't say that only a small percentage of the total quantity would be done away with.

Representative JENKINS. Here is one thing that will happen; you pile up the same land all of the time, if you don't plant anything, it will deteriorate.

Mr. BRAND. If you leave it open, the erosion will carry it away, and there is another important point. Mr. Biddle, it has been definitely shown by Dr. Bennett's soil-erosion work that the presence of these fertilizers in the soil due to their effect upon the soil colloids in itself, is a large preventive of erosion, not as good as a soil cover but a very great help.

Mr. BIDDLE. Not as good as legumes?

Mr. BRAND. Legumes and grasses; yes.

Mr. BIDDLE. It would be much cheaper to use legumes and grasses than to buy fertilizer?

Mr. BRAND. What are you going to sell?

Mr. BIDDLE. You rotate.

Mr. BRAND. Well, it would be fine, and you get going round and round, but you have got to have something to sell.

Representative JENKINS. Whenever any one year comes that you can't sell something, you can't hibernate.

Mr. BRAND. And you have got to figure that against the cost of the food.

Acting Chairman SCHWARTZ. The farmer's situation in the South is such that he must commit suicide by doing it gradually, and keep alive while he is doing it.

Mr. BRAND. You have ridden through the South, and you can see without any descriptive matter just what the standards of farm living are in most of the South.

Acting Chairman SCHWARTZ. That is just about what I say, Isn't it?

Mr. BRAND. Yes; and it is something that we take to heart very seriously.

Acting Chairman SCHWARTZ. So do we all.