MICHIGAN EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 137 



•of twenty dollars foi" each and every brand of fertilizer he offers for sale in this 

 •state: Provided, That whenever the manufacturer or importer shall have paid this 

 license fee his agents shall not be required to do so. 



Sec. 4. All such analyses of commercial fertilizers required by this act shall be made 

 under the direction of the State Board of Agriculture and paid for out of the funds 

 arising from the license fees provided for in section three. At least one analysis of 

 each fertilizer shall be made annually. 



Sec. 5. The secretary of the State Board of Agriculture shall publish in his annual 

 report a correct statement of all analyses made and certificates filed in his oSice, 

 together with a statement of all moneys received for license fees, and expended for 

 analysis. Any surplus from license fees remaining on hand at the close of the fiscal 

 year shall be placed to the credit of the experimental fund of said board. 



Sec. 6. Any person or persons who shall sell or ofl'er for sale any commercial fertil- 

 izer in this state without first complying with the provisions of sections one, two, and 

 three of this act, or who shall attach or cause to be attached to any such package or 

 fertilizer an analysis stating that it contains a larger percentage of any one or more of 

 the constituents or ingredients named in section one of this act than it really does con- 

 tain shall, upon conviction thereof, be fined not less than one hundred dollars for the 

 first offense, and not less than three hundred dollars for every subsequent offense, and 

 the offender shall also be liable for damages sustained by the purchaser of such 

 fertilizer on account of such misrepresentation. 



Sec. 7. The State Board of Agriculture by any duly authorized agent is hereby 

 authorized to select from any package of commercial fertilizer exposed for sale in this 

 state, a quantity, not exceeding two pounds, for a sample, such sample to be used for 

 the purposes of an official analysis and for comparison with the certificate filed with 

 the secretary of the State Board of Agriculture and with the certificate affixed to the 

 package on sale. 



Sec. 8. All suits for the recovery of fines under the provisions of this act shall be 

 brought under the direction of the State Board of Agriculture. 



Approved March 10, 1885. 



For the information of the parties concerned, the fertilizers that have 

 been licensed for 1892 will be indicated in the list of this Bulletin; 

 also those that have not been licensed and whose sale is illegal in this 

 state. 



The primary object of this law is to give information in regard to the 

 composition of commercial fertilizers, and to protect farmers from impo- 

 sition and loss. The question of their agricultural value, and relation to 

 crops and different kinds of soils is not touched. These subjects require 

 a separate examination for determining the relative value of any given 

 fertilizer with reference to different soils and crops. The farmer can 

 settle for himself such questions by trials of the fertilizer on a small por- 

 tion of a field and comparing the results with other parts of the same field 

 and crop on which no fertilizer has been applied. The conditions of crop, 

 soil, and climate are thus brought home to him more completely than any 

 investigation in other places and conditions can furnish. 



How the state may place before the farmers the agricultural value of 

 the various fertilizers offered for sale is a very different subject from that 

 contemplated by this law for the inspection of such fertilizers. Such law 

 of inspection offers no advice whether the farmer shall buy such fertili- 

 zers, or depend upon the home supply. In case he determines to buy, it 

 affords him some basis for calculating the commercial value of the differ- 

 ent brands offered for sale, and to select honest goods which are found to 

 be the same in the market as are claimed by the seliev. He may also be 

 •on his guard not to buy the goods which are not licensed for sale as not 

 worthy of confidence. 



With this brief statement of the objects sought by inspection, and the 

 results of analysis of goods selected in the open market as compared with 

 the claims of the manufacturer, this Bulletin is submitted to the public. 

 -Agricultural College, ) 

 July 2, 1892. ) 



