AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF NURSERYMEN. 297 



mercial fertilizers we can get, and then we of the east do not get any too 

 much. 



Mr. WiLLAiiD : There is one important feature connected with that ques- 

 tion, that I don't believe has been thought of or considered; it is the ques- 

 tion of the value of those fertilizers. Now, it should be known by every 

 gentleman present that a large percentage of commercial fertilizers are not 

 worth twenty-five cents on the dollar of what they cost. During the last 

 winter at the various farmers' institutes that have been held in southern 

 New York, there has been peddled a petition which, by the time they got 

 through, was long enough to reach five times across this room, for the pur- 

 pose of obtaining the signatures of the parties most interested in using 

 commercial fertilizers in that state. The desire on their part was this, that 

 the legislature of the state of New York should enact a law that would 

 rec^uire every manufacturer of fertilizers to have presented at the experi- 

 ment station and tested, those fertilizers, or a sample of them in quality, 

 before putting them in the market, prohibiting the sale under severe pen- 

 alty before they were approved. The result was, that when the bill passed 

 it asked for ?in appropriation adequate to the construction of an appropri- 

 ate laboratory at that station for that purpose ; the bill was passed, but the 

 appropriation was not granted, and finally the act was pronounced uncon- 

 stitutional in the state of New York — unconstitutional to protect people 

 against fraud. Now, I say, under such circumstances, the best thing that 

 we can do as a body, is to put our foot on those commercial fertilizers. 

 ( Applause. ) 



Mr. Fox: I do not agree with the gentleman. I do not think that those 

 companies were more corrupt than some of our own fertilizers and nursery- 

 men. I take a man right from the city of New York, Prof. Butler, who 

 has twenty acres of vineyard. He tells me that he has experimented for 

 years with commercial fertilizers and has had the best results. I take that 

 man's word just as easily as any man's word in this I'oom. He used Pacific 

 guano. I believe in it, and I think I can get good results from it myself. 

 I am not afraid to spend a few cents to get it. 



Mr. Willard: Do not understand me to say, or as assuming to say, 

 that every fertilizer which is put upon the market is good for nothing. I 

 mean to say that a large number of those fertilizers that have already been 

 tested by our experiment stations, and found not to be worth $8 per ton, yet 

 sell at $32. An honest company, through their agent, advocated that 

 measure in the legislative halls. Their goods had already been analyzed 

 and found to be good, and yet the opposition to the passage of that bill 

 came from nearer the city of New York. I know where it came from, and 

 I know who pronounced it unconstitutional. 



Mr. Heikes of Alabama: I have made a good many experiments with 

 commercial fertilizers, and I agree with Mr. Willard as far as the different 

 brands are concerned. Very many of them are not worth delivering to the 

 grounds, but there are some of them which are very profitable. I can tell 

 that by experiment. I think different soils require different kinds. We 

 use them with very good results and with good profit. 



Mr. Palmer : In the northern part of the state of Ohio we have been 

 using commercial fertilizers for several years, using them on the wheat 

 crop. Several years ago I met a mixture that smelt pretty strong of the 

 stockyards, and seemed to me a great portion of it was sand from the lake 

 shore. I could not see any beneSt derived from its use. Of late the legis- 

 lature of the state of Ohio passed a law similar to the one Mr. Willard 

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