CONVENTION OF ASSOCIATION OF OFFICIAL AGRICULTURAL 



CHEMISTS, 1898. 



W. H. Beal, 



Office of Experiment Stations. 



The fifteenth annual convention of the Association of Official Agri- 

 cultural Chemists was held in the lecture hall of the Columbian Univer- 

 sity at Washington, D. 0., November 11, 12, and 14, 1898. About 70 

 chemists were in attendance. 



The annual address of the president, A. L. Wintou, briefly reviewed 

 the history and scope of the work of the Association, and pointed out 

 some important new lines of investigation, among the latter being a 

 study of materials used as insecticides and fungicides, and the estab- 

 lishment of standards of purity for foods, and especially for spices. 

 Attention was called to the importance of using a greater variety of 

 materials in the cooperative test of methods by the Association, so that 

 these shall be strictly tests of the accuracy of the methods applied to 

 all classes of substances as distinguished from trials of the skill of the 

 analyst. 



A committee, consisting of E. C. Kedzie and M. E. Jaffa, was appointed 

 to wait upon the Secretary of Agriculture and invite him to attend the 

 meetings of the Association. The Secretary appeared before the Asso- 

 ciation and addressed it briefly. He noted some of the more important 

 ways in which the work of the chemist has benefited agriculture, dwell- 

 ing especially upon the chemist's relation to sugar production, and sug- 

 gested other lines of inquiry which might be profitably undertaken with 

 a view to reducing our imports. 



FERTILIZERS. 



Nitrogen. — A report on this subject, prepared by E. J. Davidson, 

 referee, was read by the secretary. This gave results of tests by 11 

 analysts of the modified Kjeldahl, modified Gunning, absolute, Ulsch- 

 Kjeldahl, and Qlsch-Gunning methods on 12 samples of fertilizers 

 containing nitrogen in various forms; as well as comparative tests by 

 12 analysts of the pepsin-hydrochloric acid and 2 per cent permanga- 

 nate of potash methods for the determination of availability of organic 

 nitrogen in fertilizers, on dried blood, cotton-seed meal, tankage, fish 

 scrap, meat scrap, castor pomace, steamed leather, bone meal, and hoof 

 meal. 



The results indicated that the present official methods for nitrogen 

 are satisfactory, and no changes in them were recommended by the 

 referee. 



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