New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 31 



nual number of samples of all kinds now analyzed is at least 

 1600. This work has been increasingly expensive, so far as feed- 

 ing stuffs are concerned, because of changes in the law requiring 

 not only a chemical analysis, but a determination of the ingredi- 

 ents in the various samples. The results of these various exam- 

 inations are published annually in the bulletins which are dis- 

 tributed to a list of over 40,000 persons. 



The desire is often expressed by dealers and farmers that these 

 analyses might be published each year before it is necessary to 

 purchase these commodities. It is not possible to accomplish this. 

 For instance, samples of fertilizers can not be taken with any 

 economy whatever until the goods for a given year are well dis- 

 tributed in the market. To take samples at the manufacturing 

 establishments would be little short of mockery. This means, 

 then, that sampling will not begin actively until early in March 

 and it is impossible to select a thousand or more samples and se- 

 cure their analysis before the sale and use of fertilizers begin. 

 The fertilizer bulletins are chiefly valuable in indicating to pur- 

 chasers those brands of fertilizers that have uniformly been as 

 good as the guarantees, and purchasers may safely bank upon the 

 continued reliability of goods that have been maintained up to 

 their guarantees during a period of years. 



At the present time, the feeding stuff trade is a source of per- 

 plexity both to the inspecting authorities and the consumer. 

 There are now being placed upon the market many brands of feed- 

 ing stuffs that are made up in part of inferior materials such as 

 ground corncobs, oat hulls, low grade screenings and the like. 

 Manufacturers are becoming somewhat expert in the use of these 

 inferior materials in such a way as to deceive the purchaser and 

 make difficult their identification. The Station is doing its best 

 to so display the composition of these questionable goods that the 

 consumer will have no difficulty in understanding what he is buy- 

 ing. It is to be feared that farmers are not paying sufficient at- 

 tention to the published reports setting forth the real character of 

 the proprietary feeding stuffs now in the market. The State is 



