No. 6. 



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



885 



Wholesale Cost per Pound of Fertilizer Constituents, New York. 



II. Bone. 



Grade. 



Rough bone. 

 Ground bone. 



Constituent Valued. 



o 



Nitrogen 



Phosphoric acid. 



Nitrogen, 



Phosphoric acid. 



15.2 

 1.53 



IS. 33 

 1.86 



3 



a 



18.24 

 1.S4 



22.0 

 2.22 



The method of computation here used, applied to the present case 

 in which a drop in the price of the entire raw material is noted, 

 with a concurrent rise in- the value of the nitrogen, judged by the 

 quotations for tankage, results, of course, in an abnormal depres- 

 sion of the cost value computed for phosphoric acid. . It must not 

 be overlooked, therefore, that this indirect method of computa- 

 tion has very pronounced limitations to its use. 



The average ground bone and bone meal on the retail market are 

 probably inferior in composition to the rough bone on the whole- 

 sale market, hence, these figures tend to be too high. Direct esti- 

 mation of the wholesale pound values of acidulated bone (animal 

 bone) cannot be made, as there are no wholesale data available for 

 this purpose; for this computation dependence must be placed upon 

 the retail selling prices. 



Valuations in Neighboring States. 



It is desirable, from all points of view, that the schedules of val- 

 uation throughout a district in which similar market conditions 

 prevail, should differ as little as possible. It has been our practice 

 in the past, to conform our schedule to that adopted after very care- 

 ful co-operative study of market conditions for each year, by the 

 New England States and New Jersey, except where the peculiar 

 conditions of our market have made the valuations diverge too 

 largely from the actual selling prices, as in the case of ground bone 

 and dissolved rock phosphates. The schedules for these states for 

 1902 and 1903 are as follows: 



