New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 965 



this law favors the purchaser, since the deficiencies allowed without 

 penalty are less than under the old law. With goods of higher grade 

 than this, on the other hand, the advantage is with the manufacturer, 

 and increasingly so the higher the guaranty of the goods. 



For example, nitrate of soda is usually guaranteed at about 15 

 per ct. nitrogen, on which the law allows a deficiency of 1.5 per ct., 

 or 30 pounds of nitrogen to the ton, selling at from 16 to 21 cents a 

 pound in different localities; in 16 per ct. acid phosphate the allow- 

 able deficiency might cost the purchaser from $1.10 to $2.65 a ton; 

 while in muriate of potash guaranteed at 49 per ct. potash, the 

 deficiency might, without penalty, lose the purchaser about 98 

 pounds of potash in a ton; that is, from $3.90 to $5.45, according to 

 what he would have paid for the goods at spring prices of 1914 



In complete fertilizers, taking the analyses of eight brands below 

 guaranty, the actual deficiencies, measured by the commercial valu- 

 ation of the elements, were worth from $1.78 to $4.81 a ton; and in 

 ten cases of fertilizing materials the absent plant food had a retail 

 market value ranging from $1.69 to $4.57. Of course purchasers 

 of such goods lost more than this; for in almost no instance did 

 they get the ingredients for their commercial valuation. 



In general it may be said that, under the present law only 34 

 violations were found in 1004 samples examined; while under the 

 old law 105 of the samples would have fallen below their guaranties 

 enough to class them as violations. 



The possibility for injustice to the farmer, therefore, 



Remedy for is considerable under the present law; and it would 

 defects seem very desirable to provide a remedy if one 

 in law. can be found that will not be unfair to the manu- 

 facturer. Such a remedy appears to lie in fixing a 

 limit beyond which the 10 per ct. deficiency provision shall not hold. 

 The Station would suggest amendment of the law by inserting in it 

 the words: " and provided further that when such ten percentum 

 deficiency amounts to more than three-tenths of one pound of nitrogen 

 or one pound of phosphoric acid or of potash in one hundred pounds 

 of fertilizer or material to be used as fertilizer, it shall be a violation 

 unless there be a monetary equivalent in excesses in other guaranteed 

 constituents as provided herein." 



