EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 



IXSPECTIOX OF COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS. 



BY K. C. KEDZIE, CHEMIST. 



Bulletin 135. — Chemical Department. 



The law providing for the inspection and regulating the sale of commer- 

 cial fertilizers was passed by the Michigan legislature in 1885, but did 

 not ''take effect" till ninety days after the final adjournment of that 

 body. The law has thus been in operation for ten years. A retrospect of 

 the workings of the law may not be out of place at this time. 



One influence that assisted in the passage of the law was the demand 

 of honest and reliable manufacturers for such a law to prevent the com- 

 petition of unscrupulous dealers who offered for sale materials having 

 very little value as fertilizers, in regard to which the farmer had no 

 ready means of determining which was valuable and which valueless. 

 Thus one manufacturer offered a mixture of soap-boilers' waste and 

 leached ashes as a high grade superphosphate ; another party shipped in 

 from Ohio marl and offered it for sale as Buckeye phosphate. The 

 college authorities were also desirous to screen the public from fraud. 

 Our legislators readily saw the need of such a law when they found 

 neighboring states requiring thorough inspection and regulation of sale, 

 thus making our state a dumping ground for worthless fertilizers from 

 other Slates. 



The effect of the law has been to exclude worthless fertilizers from 

 our state, or make their sale here very short-lived. Thus one party in a 

 neighboring state shipped in nearly a thousand tons of ground furnace 

 slag, mixed with a little salt, which they offered for sale at |20 a ton, and 

 advertised the mixture in extravagant terms as a valuable fertilizer. 

 When this wonderful compound, "Every pound made up of plant food," 

 was analyzed and the farmers, were informed that its real value as 

 manure was only a few cents, they concluded not to pay the retail price 

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