clxxxiv GENERAL SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC AND 



The Connecticut Experiment Station and the Fertilizer Trade. 

 A fertilizer control system on the German j)lan has been intro- 

 duced in Connecticut by the State Experiment Station, and is work- 

 ing very satisfactorily. A considerable number of low-grade and 

 fraudulent fertilizers have been examined, and their character ex- 

 posed. One article, for instance, which had been sold for $55 per 

 ton, a discount from the regular price of $60 per ton being made to 

 " introduce the article," proved to be nearly one half sand, and to 

 have a commercial value of about $8 per ton. Several parties who 

 had bought and tried the article, on learning the result of the anal- 

 ysis refused payment, a considerable sum of money being thus saved 

 to the victims of the fraud. Arrangements are made whereby respon- 

 sible dealers sell their goods under supervision of the station, guar- 

 anteeing their composition, and holding them at all times subject to 

 examination by the station. Purchasers have also the privilege of 

 having the fertilizers they buy analyzed at the station at small cost 

 or for nothing. In no case thus far has any article sold under the 

 supervision proved essentially inferior to the representations upon 

 which it was sold. Taking both composition and price into account, 

 the fertilizers sold under the supervision of the station have cost the 

 farmers on the average less than one half as much as those not so 

 sold. 



Report on Commercial Fertilizers at the Vienna Mvjyosition. The 

 report on commercial fertilizers, by Professor P. Collier, member 

 of the Scientific Commission of the United States to the Interna- 

 tional Exhibition at Vienna in 1873, has appeared in the form of a 

 pamphlet of sixty-seven pages, and is replete with interesting matter. 

 It gives a large number of statistics concerning the trade in fertilizers 

 in Europe and America, their sources, character, value, and cost. 



This report coincides fully w^ith the common experience in Europe 

 and in this country in showing that there is a great deal of fraud in 

 commercial fertilizers ; that the bulk of what is in the market is 

 good, however; and that the only method to prevent frauds, enable 

 the farmers to make sure of getting reliable w^ares, and at the same 

 time to improve the general quality of the wares as sold, rests in 

 control systems based on chemical analysis. 



SEEDS, SEED CONTEOL, ETC. 

 Investigations of Seeds in Germany. Of the many new ways in 

 which science has of late come to be applied to agriculture, one of 

 the most interesting as well as most useful is in the investigation of 

 seeds. In 18G9 Dr. Nobbe, director of the agricultural experiment 

 station at Tharand,in Saxony, commenced the study of seeds in com- 

 mon use in Germany, and founded the first " seed-control station." 

 How much of good has come from this may be inferred from the fact 

 that during tlie seven years that have since elapsed over 4000 sam- 



