392 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Court Case 



During the past year the first court case under the fertilizer law was 

 successfully terminated. In the early part of May this office was notified 

 of a product purporting to be a commercial fertilizer which was being 

 sold throughout Lapeer county. An investigation was immediately 

 started which disclosed that one, Richard Stafford of North Branch, Mich- 

 igan, purchased a carload of pulverized limestone from the Solvay Pro- 

 cess Co. of Detroit. This was packed in 100 pound paper sacks and was 

 plainly marked as pulverized limestone. The cost of the limestone was 

 |4.17 per ton laid down at North Branch. Mr. Stafford called it a '^gov- 

 ernment fertilizer" and sold it for §12.00 per ton, claiming it to be a lime 

 and phosphate mixture. 



An inspector from this office accompanied by Mr. L. T. Bishop, county 

 agricultural agent of Lapeer count}^, called upon several men who had 

 purchased portions of the shipment and drew an official sample. 



After a chemical analysis proved it to be nothing but pulverized lime- 

 stone the evidence was laid before the prosecuting attorney of Lapeer 

 county. On June 21, 1918, a hearing was granted Mr. Stafford in the 

 Justice court when he plead guilty to the charge. He was bound over to 

 the Circuit court for sentence and on June 27 was fined .f;200 and costs. 



In justice to the Solvay Process Co., Detroit, Michigan, we wish to say 

 they were in no way involved in the case. 



Fertilizer Prices 



The rise of commercial fertilizer prices during the past two or three 

 years has put every consumer on his mettle to keep the cost of fertilizing 

 down as low as possible. One means has been the curtailment, and in 

 some cases, the abandonment of the use of potash, especially on the heavier 

 soils and in connection with crops that are not heavy potash feeders. The 

 increased use of acid phosphate is undoubtedly due, in part, to this same 

 effort to reduce the ever rising costs. 



The temptation to buy low grade goods which sell at a lower price per 

 ton is strong, even under normal conditions but in these abnormal times 

 the tendency toward the lower grade fertilizers has seemed to be greater 

 than ever. That this practice is unwise is shown in the following discus- 

 sion of unit costs of the different forms of plant-food. 



The "unit" method of computing values is commonly used in the fertil- 

 izer trade and the reader should get the meaning of the term and its 

 application clearly in mind. One unit of plant-food is understood to mean 

 one per cent on the basis of the ton and hence represents 20 pounds; thus, 

 if a fertilizer contains one per cent of nitrogen it is said to carry one 

 unit of nitrogen, if two per cent then there are two units of nitrogen in 

 the ton and similarly for the other plant-foods. A fertilizer, then, analyz- 

 ing 1% nitrogen, S% phosphoric acid and 1% potash carries one, eight 

 and one units of the plant-foods in the order named. Knowing the ton 

 price of a fertilizer containing but one of the plant-foods, as for instance 

 an acid phosphate, the unit price of the particular food element is deter- 

 mined by dividing the ton price by the number representing the percent- 

 age. 



During the past year five different grades of acid phosphate were sold 

 in the State. Of the 18 per cent and 20 per cent grades only one or two 



