178 BOARD OF AGRICULTUEE. 



of this Bocard of Agriculture, whose business it should be to 

 take these fertilizers as they are sold in the market, whenever 

 and wherever he pleases, and analyze them, and if any fraud 

 is discovered, the manufacturer should be liable to prosecu- 

 tion and punishment as a criminal, not merely as a man who 

 has sold something for more than it was worth, but as a man 

 who had committed a great fraud upon the community. The 

 point is not what a man has paid more than the thing is worth ; 

 but the question is. What injury has that fraud inflicted upon 

 the community? 



Understand me. I do not say that there is any fraud about 

 these things. I am speaking upon general principles. I am 

 saying that it is hioidedge you want. I am saying that there 

 is science enough in Massachusetts to-day, so that we need go 

 upon nobody's opinion. We may know exactly what we put 

 upon our land, and how much it costs, and then we shall be 

 prepared to know about how much it is worth. But so long 

 as we go upon opinions, so long as we buy fertilizers without 

 knowing what thej^ are made of, so long as Tom, Dick and 

 Harry spread them upon all sorts of land, in all seasons, and 

 use them with all sorts of seed and all sorts of cultivation, we 

 do not know any more when we get through than we did 

 when we be<ran. We must have a foundation on which to 

 build, and the means of obtaining this foundation we have to- 

 day in the Commonwealth of ^Massachusetts. We may know 

 every item that enters into the composition of the various 

 fertilizers for which such enormous sums of money are paid 

 every year in this State. In my vicinity where the tobacco 

 fertilizers are boug-ht, it amounts to hundreds of thousands of 

 dollars. The way in which those men waste their money is 

 amazing. Farmers buy whatever is ofi*ered. They will buy 

 of this man and that man and the other man. It is a positive 

 fact that our tobacco growers will put three kinds of fertilizers 

 on the same field. They are always sure to get enough of 

 something. They put on a good lot of barn-yard manure, and 

 they boost the plants with anything they can buy, they do not 

 care what it is made of. What they are after is tobacco ; 

 they expect a profit of three hundred dollars an acre, and they 

 do not stop to ask what they are buying. They throw their 

 money away as if it were nothing but gravel. Now that ought 



