COMMERCIAL FEIITILIZEIIS. 217 



EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT ON COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS. 

 To the Massachusetts Slate Board uf Ai/ricuUure. 



Gentlemen, — The trade in commercial fertilizers has 

 been quite active during the past year. The demand for 

 reputed standard articles has not unfrequently exceeded the 

 resources of the manufacturer. The general improvement in 

 the preparation of tlie commercial fertilizers, in consequence 

 of a careful supervision of this branch of industry, as well as 

 a growing intelligent appreciation of their true relation to a 

 rational system of manuring our farm-lands, cannot but cause 

 a steady increase in our home consumption. The number of 

 brands offered for sale within the limits of our State has not 

 materially changed. Some dealers have withdrawn their 

 goods, and others have taken their places : on the whole, our 

 agricultural home interests have been the gainer by these 

 changes. Dealers in articles of doubtful merits have to 

 resort to a change in the name of their articles to secure 

 patrons ; whilst real spurious articles can only be sold by irre- 

 sponsible travelling agents : their operations are usually con- 

 fined to a limited locality, and are of a sporadic character. 

 With the assistance of the farmers, these practices may be 

 entirely eradicated. The majority of our farmers, benefiting 

 by the advice coming from their State Board, quite properly 

 prefer to patronize those manufacturers, without reference to 

 locality, who court a fair investigation of their articles by 

 recording their general character, as prescribed by our State 

 laws, at the ofiice of the secretaries of the Commonwealth 

 and of the State Board of Agriculture, and who offer their 

 goods for sale through responsible parties. 



To meet the just claims of those of our manufacturers 

 whose business transactions extend beyond our State lines, 

 for a harmonious action of State inspectors of fertilizers, and 

 others connected with the examination of commercial fer- 

 tilizers, I attended during the past year (July 28, 1880), 

 at the invitation of Judge J. T. Henderson, commissioner of 

 agriculture of the State of, Georgia, a convention of State 

 commissioners of agriculture. State inspectors of fertilizers, 

 and chemists connected with the manufacture of fertilizers 

 and the fertilizer trade in general, at Washington, D.C., to 

 discuss the fertilizer question, and, in particular, to devise 



