206 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



apply it, and use their own brains in their farming, instead of 

 keeping their brains for investing the money they make out 

 of it. I think they will get a larger return in the end. 



Now, if I have not exhausted my time, I wish to say a few 

 words in regard to adulterations in fertilizers. As near as I 

 can tell from Professor Goessmann's reports, the adulterations 

 are now largely in fertilizers sold under fifteen dollars a ton, 

 which are not covered by the law of Massachusetts, as other 

 fertilizers are. Those manures are put on the market, and 

 represented to be as good as a really good article. The farm- 

 ers, of course, want to buy as cheap as they can ; and if they 

 can buy a fertilizer for fourteen dollars or fifteen dollars a 

 ton, if they can be made to believe that it is as good as one 

 that costs forty dollars or fifty dollars a ton, of course they 

 will buy it ; and they are persuaded to buy this miserable stuff. 



Now, if you go to Professor Goessmann's reports, you will 

 find that a certain man's fertilizers that are sold under fifteen 

 dollars a ton are worth not over five dollars or six dollars, — 

 not worth the cost of transportation to some parts of the State 

 hardly. That is what you have got to look out for, and that 

 is what should be brought to the attention of the Legislature. 

 If there are any members elect here, they ought to look to it 

 next winter, and see that the law is so amended as to cover 

 all sorts of fertilizers. I tell you, that, if any fertilizer will 

 not pay for the analysis, you had better not put it on the market. 

 That is my idea about it. I do not want to call any of those 

 fertilizers by name, that are so cheap ; but, if you will go to 

 Professor Goessmann's report, you will find one that is called 

 " Ward's Fertilizer : " that is what Professor Goessmann calls 

 it. I think I said, in answer to that gentleman once, that he 

 reminded me of what a man once told me when I was a boy, 

 and used to go gunning. He said, " John, don't waste your 

 ammunition on any thing that is not worth shooting." 



Mr. W. H. BoWKER of Boston. I will occupy but a mo- 

 ment, as I am an interested party, and it is improper for an 

 interested party to take up the time of this convention. The 

 question wliich the gentleman raised is a fair one ; and it 

 should be met by me as the representative of a certain brand 

 of fertilizers. In sending out fertilizers, it is impossible for 

 us to guarantee them against the season : I think no reason- 

 able farmer will expect of any fertilizer manufacturer, that 



