EDITORIAL. 205 



nient to other States. That it met the reciuireiiients and established 

 jiopidar confidence is a matter of history. 



Professor Johnson's work for years past had shown that the farm- 

 ers were losing a great deal of money through inferior and care- 

 lessly made fertilizers and through ignorance in the use of them. 

 This showing supplied the argument for a station which appealed to 

 the people, and it is doubtful whether a station could have come at 

 that timeand place through other means. 



At the beginning, therefore, the defense work was a necessary and 

 most important part of the station's work. It was the first and most 

 obvious thing Avhich needed to be done for the benefit of agriculture. 

 AVhile it Avas not regarded by those in charge as being the most ideal 

 work which a station could perform, at the time it was the approach 

 through which the ideal had to be reached. 



The first bulletin issued by the station under Doctor Johnson's 

 direction was in his own handwriting, and has been reproduced by 

 the station as a matter of historic interest. It reported upon a fer- 

 tilizer known as " Composition for Grass," which was being sold 

 under the rej^resentation that it contained 8G per cent of " organic 

 and soluble plant food," and 14 per cent of inorganic matter. It w^as 

 found to carr}^ only 0.19 per cent of nitrogen, 0.15 per cent of potash, 

 and 0.37 per cent of phosphoric acid, on which a valuation of $1.03 

 per ton was calculated, whereas the selling price was $32. 



Doctor Johnson's significant comment is that " as analyzed the 

 sample contains but 4 per cent of ' plant food ; ' 9G per cent is water, 

 vegetable matter, and earth, not worth barreling." The material 

 proved to be the dried product from a mud flat near New Haven, and 

 the ])ublication of the fraud led the manufacturer to transfer his 

 operations to another State. 



While this is not to be taken as rei^resentative of the fertilizers of 

 that day, it shows the kind of fraud which was perpetrated and was 

 possible to be carried on a little more than thirty years ago. Such 

 frauds danuiged not only the farmer, but they damaged the makers 

 of honest fertilizers almost irreparably, by bringing the whole busi- 

 ness into unjust suspicion and disrepute. 



The thorough, conscientious, and efficient system of fertilizer 

 inspection which Doctor Johnson developed has been a model to 

 many other States, and helped to establish confidence in the trade. 

 Upon it has been built a station renowned for the scope and high 

 character of its defense work, which has been extended to include 

 human foods, stock feeds, seeds, insecticides, and other products of 

 interest. to agriculture. 



But the exclusively control station was not Doctor Johnson's ulti- 

 mate ideal. The aim of the station, as stated in the act of incorpora- 

 tion, was "to promote agriculture by scientific investigation and 



