Of course the manufacturers had bought blue rock for $2.25, and knew they were getting it at very nearly the cost of production, and when they saw the “snap” the miner had, they took the stick this excess of I. & A. gave them and proceeded to beat the price down with it until $1.25 and eventually $1.00 per ton were common prices. Capitalists were rendered more timid than ever before, and even astute phosphate man that he was Col. D. B. Cooper threw up both hands and quit. He said, “Boys, if that is phosphate, the whole basin of Middle Tennessee is full of it, and it will never be worth mining, as every farmer will pick it up off the ground and haul it to the railroad.” Mr. John S. O’Neal, in a paper presented to the Engineering Association of the South, as late as 1897, said, “the owner of a bed of phosphate rock, is not as well off as the owner of a sand bank, given the same proximity to market.” The poor fellows in the phosphate business, however, couldn’t get out, and kept digging away, until gradually capital decided it was worth buying the lands after all, and as a result nearly $2,000,000 has been paid for property in the Mt. Pleasant field, about $500,000 in other portions of Maury County, and over $1,000,000 for property in the counties of Decatur, Perry, Lewis, Hickman, Giles, Williamson, Davidson and Sumner. Rock has gradually advanced in price until now 65 per cent blue rock sells at from $2.60 to $2.80 per ton, 75 per cent brown rock at from $3.10 to $3.60 per ton and 78 per cent domestic (4½ I. & A.) at $3.75 to $4.00, while 78 per cent export rock with 3 to 4 per cent I. & A. sells for from $4.00 to $4.25 per ton. As the prices have increased the cost of production has increased for one reason and another, until now each ton of phosphate rock put on board the cars represents an average cost in labor and salaries of $2.00 per ton. The production for 1904 having been 540,000 tons, the wage earners of Tennessee have profited by this industry to the extent of $1,080,000 during last year alone. On the other hand, fertilizer factories have sprung up all through the interior of the country like magic, and as they now get 75 per cent rock at their factory for less than the freight they used to pay on 62 per cent rock from South Carolina, acid phosphate is cheaper than ever before, and consequently the farmer gets cheaper fertilizer or else better fertilizer for the same money.