The  manufacturing  interests  involved  are  concerned  primarily  in  the
manufacture  of  other  than  nitrogen  products.  The  by-product  nitrogen
recovered  has  to  compete  for  its  market  against  what  comes  from  the
other  two  industrial  classes  of  supply,  and  its  price  goes  just  low  enough
to  enable  it  to  do  so.  The  limits  set  in  the  incidental  character  of  the
output  leave  no  special  incentive  to  carry  the  price  competition  further.
Whatever  additional  latitude  of  advantage  as  to  cost  of  production  it
possesses  goes  not  to  promoting  a  further  reduction  in  the  price  of  nitro-
gen but  to  lowering  costs  with  reference  to  the  major  theme  of  production.
Gas-house  ammonia,  for  instance,  does  not  affect  the  nitrogen  market  so
much  as  it  does  the  cost  of  gas,  and  the  organic  ammoniates  recovered
in  connection  with  meat  packing  have  not  lowered  fertilizer  costs  so
much  as  they  have  kept  down  the  cost  of  meat  to  the  consumer.  Thus
the  by-product  class  of  supply,  though  the  leading  one  in  the  point  of
magnitude,  and  by  far  the  cheapest  to  produce,  has  little  to  do  with  deter-
mining the  price  of  nitrogen.     The  selling  price  of  by-product  nitrogen  is


NITROGEN  437

determined  by  the  price  the  product  from  competing  sources  brings.  In
this  country  it  is  controlled  by  the  price  of  Chile  nitrate,  and  not,  as
commonly  imputed,  by  the  trade  combinations  that  develop  and  handle
the  output.
