28 Director's Report of the 



safe to affirm, on the basis of the facts contained in the above-men- 

 tioned bulletin, that this expenditure might be materially reduced 

 by improved methods of buying, methods which require no un- 

 usual knowledge or intelligence. 



Dr. Van Slyke shows that the fertilizers sampled in the spring 

 had an average selling price $9.13 in excess of the commercial 

 valuation, the excess in the case of the fall goods being $5.28. 

 This was nearly 50 per cent of the commercial valuation of 

 the spring goods and 33 per cent the fall goods. Now it is an 

 actual fact that farmers' clubs, or even individual farmers in New 

 York not too remote from railroads, can purchase nitrogen, phos- 

 phoric acid and potash delivered at their farms, for not more and 

 often for less than the prices named in the schedule of valuation. 

 In the case of phosphoric acid in acid phosphates it can now be 

 bought at a price below the valuation named, viz., 4^ cents per 

 pound. Very recently phosphoric acid has been delivered to buy- 

 ers in Central New York through an agent of the manufacturers 

 at less than 4 cents per pound. As a matter of fact thousands of 

 tons of fertilizers are now purchased annually in this State greatly 

 under the usual retail cost of similar goods. Farmers often write 

 to the Station, naming sums at which they can buy certain mix- 

 tures of local agents, prices which are positively extortionate, and 

 the remedy lies either with the club system or in the purchase of 

 unmixed materials to be mixed on the farm. Many of the 195 

 individuals and firms who register as manufacturers are not really 

 such; they are only mixers; that is, they buy acid phosphate, 

 potash salts and nitrogenous materials and mix them together in 

 various proportions, give names to the different combinations and 

 then retail them to the farmers. All this is unnecessary. Farm- 

 ers can do their own mixing, and the interposition of the so- 

 called manufacturer adds nothing to the value of the plant food 

 purchased. Many of the real manufacturers stand ready to sell 

 the chemicals and raw materials separately or compounded in any 

 proportions desired, and hundreds of farmers are now taking ad- 

 vantage of this opportunity. 



