398 ANALYTICAL ASSOCIATIONS. 



recorded had the buyers not been too careless in the matter of 

 their guarantees, or the associations been too lax in their methods 

 of taking and preserving samples. Among the former cases 

 was one from the Kelso Association, where the guarantee was 

 only a verbal one, and where the seller claimed that the buyer 

 must have misunderstood the exact terms of it. Among the 

 latter were cases where the seller had not had an opportunity 

 afforded him of seeing the sample drawn, or where the sample 

 had not been properly secured or had been destroyed. There 

 were other cases in which the buyer was very sharply dealt 

 with, owing to the peculiar terms of the guarantee. 



It is not sufficient to have a guarantee, and that a written one. 

 There are guarantees which are so worded as to appear to 

 guarantee much more than they really do. Thus, when a 

 manure is guaranteed to contain from 20 to 25 of phosphates, 

 it rarely happens that it contains more than 20 per cent. It 

 frequently contains much less — probably about 17 per cent. ; 

 and when the buyer, who was fairly entitled to expect about 22 

 per cent., makes a complaint regarding the deficiency, he is 

 informed that there is no real deficiency, as the manures are all 

 sold under a margin of 3 per cent, phosphates. Similarly, 

 manures guaranteed to contain from 2 to 3 per cent, of ammonia 

 are frequently found to contain only IJ per cent, but here 

 again the buyer is informed that a margin of J per cent, is 

 claimed in ammonia. These margins of 3 per cent, phosphates 

 and h per cent, ammonia are usually printed in the first page of 

 a price list, and seem to be claimed quite irrespective of the 

 total amounts of these substances contained in the manure. 



It may contain 70 per cent, of phosphates, or it may contain 

 only 10 per cent. ; it may contain 12 per cent, of ammonia, or 

 it may contain 1 per cent. ; the margins remain the same. 

 This is not as it ought to be. It is right that there should be a 

 margin, but it should be some reasonable proportion of the total 

 amount guaranteed. Under this fixed margin, it would be 

 possible to sell as a manure a substance that was not a manure 

 at all ; it has only to be guaranteed to contain from 3 to 6 per 

 cent, of soluble phosphate and from J to 3 per cent, of ammonia, 

 " with the usual margin," and it may be rubbish containing 

 none of these things. There are two ways of allowing a margin, 

 — either the stuff is guaranteed to contain an ingredient some- 

 where between a minimum and maximum limit, such as from 20 

 to 23 per cent., meaning by that, that in no case will the 

 ingredient fall below 20 per cent, or rise above 23 ; or a definite 

 analysis is given, and a certain range of margin is agreed upon 

 to cover differences in manufacture or in analysis by different 

 chemists. Either one or other of these methods may be fairly 

 used, but there are some merchants who claim both these 



