U CONTROL SERIES NO. 158 



SMALL PACKAGE FERTILIZERS 



Anyone interested in either outdoor gardening on a small scale or indoor 

 growing of potted flower plants knows that in recent years the sale of small package 

 fertilizers has increased tremendously. During the spring and summer months 

 the garden supply houses are stocked with such a variety of different brands of 

 garden and flower fertilizers, or plant foods as most of them are called, that the 

 average gardener must have some difficulty in deciding which to buy. 



The gardener is subjected to various forms of high pressure advertising by 

 radio and full page spreads in newspapers and garden magazines extolling the mar- 

 velous virtues of this or that garden plant food. Magical, wonder, enchanted, 

 miracle, and similar words to describe these products commonly appear in the 

 advertisements. Sometimes claims are made for the presence of a multitude of 

 trace minerals, vitamins, organic compounds, etc. And the average prices per 

 pound of plant food range from 25 cents to $26.60 on products sold in the State. 



The Massachusetts Fertilizer Control Service does not pretend to know all 

 the answers regarding garden and flower fertilizers. The purpose of this article 

 is to present some facts regarding the composition and price of fertilizers. These 

 facts may be of some help to gardeners. 



One may wonder why the cost of one pound of plant food in some small pack- 

 age fertilizers runs as high as $26.60. There are several reasons for this. In the 

 first place the housewife's reluctance to wrestle with an 80- or 100-pound bag of 

 fertilizer every time she wants to give her potted flowers some plant food is under- 

 standable. She demands a smaller package and is willing to pay a higher price per 

 unit of plant food because she knows that it costs considerably more to sell any 

 commodity in a small package than it does to sell it in large lots. 



Second, the advertising cost connected with the sale of some of these products 

 is high. In some instances this is probably the largest item of expense for the 

 fertilizer manufacturer. This cost obviously must be paid by the purchaser of the 

 products being advertised. 



Third, the water soluble materials present in some of these plant foods cost 

 more than some of the ingredients found in regular farm fertilizers. However, 

 unless fertilizers that are entirely water soluble are used as plant starters or for 

 growing plants in water or sand cultures, they have no particular advantage over 

 the regular fertilizers, except that of ease of application. 



Fourth, the margin of profit in the sale of the small package fertilizer is usually 

 considerably higher than that for regular fertilizers. 



These four factors combined mean, in some cases, a unit cost that far exceeds 

 the cost for a similar unit of plant food in a bag of regular commercial fertilizer. 

 For the smallest sized packages intended almost solely for small lots of potted flower 

 plants the total amount expended by any one individual is so small that the economic 

 factor is hardly worth considering. In this case the convenience of handling a 

 small package and the absence of objectionable odor or dust while applying the 

 fertilizer to plants probably outweigh the extra cost, especially so far as most women 

 are concerned. 



