THE STOCKBRIDGE FERTILIZERS. 195 



We find a very slight guaranty there. 



"OUE PKINCIPLE. 



" We state what we sell, and sell what we state. A guar- 

 anteed analysis accompanies each package." 



I came hastily from home, and am not prepared, as I should 

 have been, with statistics from our farmers, or statements 

 from them, showing the results which have disappointed 

 them. But, going into an agricultural store here in your 

 town, I inquired if I could find one of those little tags with 

 the analysis of the manure. " Certainly ; " and they handed 

 me a quantity of them. They had, I should think, a four- 

 quart dish full of them. I presume they use them properly : 

 I have no reason to doubt it. But still it seemed to me a 

 strange idea, that these tags should be spread broadcast 

 through New England, to be tacked on to any thing that a 

 dishonest man might apply them to. 



Now, as to the analysis, — "five to eight per cent of nitro- 

 gen." That is a large lee-way. " Six to eight per cent of 

 potash." That is rather a large lee-way. " Two to four per 

 cent soluble phosphoric acid." A large lee-way (fifty per. 

 cent) there. Where is the farmer guaranteed ? Now, I wish 

 to ask the gentleman who compounds these fertilizers — Mr. 

 Bowker or Professor Stockbridge — if he claims or believes 

 that this complies with the law of Massachusetts. I intended 

 to have brought in the law, and to have read it to you ; but 

 you all know it, and especially the gentlemen interested. I 

 wish to ask, if, upon a fair interpretation of the law, this 

 statement complies with it, or comes anywhere near it. I 

 believe that question can be answered in but one way. 



I will give one fact which came imder my own observation. 

 A wealthy man who farms a little, for the amusement of it, 

 bought the fertilizer for potatoes, and sowed it on a quarter 

 of an acre broadcast, as it was to be sown. The potato-beetle 

 frightened him ; and he planted one half of it to corn, and 

 the other half to potatoes. The fertilizer for potatoes gave 

 him a very excellent crop of corn. I do not think that 

 any of our corn-crops raised on the fertilizer prepared for 

 corn equalled, or exceeded at any rate, the crop raised on 

 this piece of land manured with the potato-fertilizer as put 

 up by Mr. Bowker. The potatoes were small, and few in 



