No. 6. 



DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



7a5 



The cases of deficiency noted during the past six seasons in the 

 goods as compared with tlieir guaranties, expressed in percentage 

 of the total number of goods of each class analyzed, are as follows: 



Percentages of Deficiency, 1899-1901. 



a) 



Complete fertilizer 



Dissolved bone 



Rock and potash 



Dissolved rock 



Ground bone 



All classes except miscellaneous, 



34.6 

 40.0 

 26.2 

 8.2 

 18.2 

 27.6* 



•Only two samples analyzed. 



fOnly one sample analyzed. 



These figures show changes from year to year; in 1900 there was 

 an exceptional increase, both spring and fall, in such deficiencies; 

 but, last spring, the number dropped back to normal; the past season 

 mnkes the best showing, in this respect, that has been made for sev- 

 eral years. 



In most samples which are found below guaranty at one point, 

 there is an excess at some other point, indicating that the cause of 

 departure from the composition guaranteed lay not in the failure of 

 the manufacturer to use the requisite components, but in his failure 

 to secure a uniform mixture. 



Considering all cases of complete fertilizers in which guaranties 

 were strictly comparable with stated analytical results and suffi- 

 ciently complete for the purpose: Eighty-eight such cases of de- 

 ficiency occur; of these there are thirty-five in which the deficiency 

 at one point is not counter-balanced by any very marked tendency 

 to excess in the other constituents of the mixture, while fifty-three 

 cases, or a little less than two-thirds of the entire number, exhibit 

 distinctly such counterbalancing tendencies. 



Of the eighty-nine cases, twenty-six show a total deficiency of 

 21.70 per cent, of available phosphoric acid, sixty-two a total excess 

 of 60.77 per cent, or a net excess for the average case of 0.44 per cent., 

 in like manner the sum of the deficiencies in potash shown by forty 

 samples is 27.60, the sum of excesses in forty-seven cases is 19.48, 

 making an average net deficiency of 0.09 per cent.; and the sum of 

 nitrogen deficiencies in sixty-three cases is 15.28, that of the excesses 

 in twenty-four cases, 3.39, making an average net deficiency of 0.13 



