No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 825 



in the soil depends very largely on the fineness of its particles the 

 finer being much more quickly useful to the plant. 



The law having required the manufacturer to guarantee the 

 amount of certain valuable ingredients present in any brand he may 

 put upon the market, chemical analysis is employed to verify the 

 guaranties stamped upon the fertilizer sacks. It has, therefore, 

 been deemed desirable in this report to enter the guaranty filed by 

 the manufacturer in the office of the Secretary of Agriculture, in 

 such connection with the analytical results that the two may be 

 compared. An unfortunate practice has grown up among manu- 

 facturers of so wording the guaranty that it seems to declare the 

 presence in the goods of an amount of a valuable constituent ranging 

 from a certain minimum to a much higher maximum; thus, "Potash, 

 2 to 4 per cent" is a guaranty not infrequently given. In reality, 

 the sole guaranty is for 2 per cent. The guaranteed amounts given 

 for each brand in the following tables, are copied from the guaran- 

 ties filed by the maker of the goods with the Secretary of Agricul- 

 ture, the lowest figure given for any constituent being considered 

 to be the amount guaranteed. For compactness and because no 

 essentially important fact is suppressed thereby, the guaranties for 

 soluble and reverted phosphoric acid have not been given sepa- 

 rately, but are combined into a single guaranty for available phos- 

 phoric acid; in cases where the maker's guaranty does not specific- 

 ally mention available phosphoric acid, the sum of the lowest figures 

 given by him for soluble and reverted phosphoric acid is used. The 

 law of 1879 allowed the maker to express his guaranty for nitro- 

 gen either in terms of that element or in terms of the ammonia 

 equivalent thereto; since ammonia is composed of three parts of 

 hydrogen and fourteen parts of nitrogen, it is a very simple matter 

 to calculate the amount of one, when the amount of the other is 

 given; the amount of nitrogen multiplied by 1.214 will give the 

 corresponding amount of ammonia, and the amount of ammonia 

 multiplied by 0.824 will give the corresponding amount of nitrogen. 

 In these tables, the expression is in terms of nitrogen. 



The law of 1901 abolishes this alternative and requires that the 

 guaranty shall be given in terms of nitrogen. Many manufacturers 

 after complying with the terms of the law, insert additional items 

 in their guaranties, often with the result of misleading or confusing 

 the buyer; the latter will do well to give heed to those items only 

 that are given as the law requires and that are presented in these 

 tables. 



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