14 Director's Report of the 



entire number of brands sold. It is impossible with the funds 

 now at the command of the Station for fertilizer inspection to 

 search out and sample in any one year every brand that is sold 

 or offered for sale within the boundaries of the State. As a 

 matter of fact, the work of this kind that is now done is really 

 costing the Station more than the sum appropriated for this pur- 

 pose. It is entirely safe to say that the appropriation for fer- 

 tilizer inspection in New York is less in proportion to the neces- 

 sary work than is the case in any other state. The situation is 

 somewhat perplexing. It would be desirable if some means 

 could be devised to check this useless multiplication of brands, 

 at least so long as it is necessary for the State to inspect them. 

 This could be done, possibly, by imposing an analysis fee upon 

 each brand sold or offered for sale. There are reasons why it 

 would be just to do this. For instance, one company registered 

 in 1897 two hundred and forty-two brands and the effort required 

 for the inspection of these, provided they were all sampled, is a 

 large proportion of the work for the year. This company imposes 

 upon the State an expense which is greatly disproportionate to 

 its sales as compared with other companies offering a greatly 

 less number of brands. It is very certain that if the fertilizer 

 trade continues Its present development, either an analysis fee 

 must be imposed or else the State appropriation must be consid- 

 erably increased. lAs the matter now stands, a large share of the 

 time of the chemist-in-chief and of four assistant chemists, be- 

 sides a good deal of attention on the part of the Director of the 

 Station, is devoted to fertilizer inspection. The result is that 

 the efforts of certain Station officers in the direction of investiga- 

 tion are unfortunately limited by this burden of routine work to 

 an extent not justifiable from any point of view. I commend 

 this matter to the attention of your Board as one worthy of seri- 

 ous and careful consideration. 



Sugar beets. — Considerable attention has been devoted to sugar 

 beet analysis. This was made necessary by the present active 

 and wide spread discussion of sugar beet production in New 

 York. 



