No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 13 



COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS. 



An important part of the work of this Department is the control 

 it exercises over the sale of commercial fertilizers. The good that 

 is accomplished every year in this one line, more than compensates 

 for the entire cost of maintaining the department. The farmer, 

 who to-day purchases a fertilizer intelligently, needs not fear that 

 he is not receiving a fair equivalent for his money. 



Twice each year agents of the Department are sent out over the 

 State to collect samples of the fertilizers that may be found upon 

 the market, which samples are analyzed by competent chemists, 

 and the results of analysis, together with a statement of the actual 

 commercial value of the goods, are published in a bulletin and given 

 to the public. It was hoped, when this work began, that such pub- 

 lication of the character and actual value of fertilizers in use, 

 would prove a sufficient means of keeping the goods up to the 

 standard of the guarantee every manufacturer is required to give, 

 but it has been found necessary to bring some j^rosecutions for the 

 violation of the fertilizer law. 



Prosecutions thus far have been brought only in cases where the 

 discrepancy between the analysis and guarantee was so great as to 

 indicate a clear intention to defraud, for the reason that with the 

 means at our disposal, it was impossible to employ the assistants 

 needed to make information against otlenders, and to attend the 

 hearings before magistrates and trials in quarter sessions courts, 

 as well as to' pay the counsel fee that would follow if prosecutions 

 were instituted in every case in which an action might be sustained. 

 With the more liberal provision made by the last General Assem- 

 bly, we have been enabled to increase our force sufficiently to ren- 

 der it possible for the Department to draw the lines more closely, 

 which will be done during the year upon which we have just en- 

 tered. 



The Department is constantly receiving inquiries regarding the 

 legal right of farmers to mix raw fertilizing materials for their own 

 use. Owing to the satisfactory results of experimenting conducted 

 by some farmers and truck growers, the use of special formulas for 

 fertilizers is becoming quite common, and manufacturers, in some in- 

 stances, insist that they should be permitted to sell raw materials 

 such as dried "blood, tankage, nitrate of soda and potash, without 

 complying with the act of Assembly, requiring a statement of the 

 percentage of fertilizer ingredients they contain, or the payment 

 of the regular license fee. It is true that farmers should be able 

 to buy these materials to better advantage if the license fee were 

 not required, but if persons selling such raw materials should be 

 exempt from the requirements of the act regulating the sale of fer- 

 tilizers, the purchaser could have no assurance that he receives 

 what he pays for; unless he buys upon a guarantee, in which case, 

 each farmer would be at the expense of getting the goods analyzed 

 or his guarantee would avail him nothing. It is better, therefore, 

 that the manufacturer furnish the guaranteed analysis with every 

 package sold and pay the regular license fee. This is what the law 

 requires shall be done in the case of every substance sold within 

 the Commonwealth, for manurial purposes, except barnyard 

 * manure, wood ashes, marl and lime. 



