CHAPTER XLI. 

 FRAUDS IN FERTILIZERS. 



There are in the manufacture of fertilizers today, men who are as hon- 

 orable and correct in all their dealings as those in any other line of business, 

 but in States where the fertilizer laws are not as strict, or are not as strictly 

 enforced, as they should be, there are those in the fertilizer business (as in 

 every other line of human effort), whose object is to live by their wits, and to 

 give as little as possible for the money they receive. If the law and the in- 

 spectors do not watch for him, the farmer is perfectly helpless to discover 

 these frauds. If the stuif has a rank smell he is apt to conclude that it is a 

 good article, when it may not be worth hauling home. Owing to the increas- 

 ing stringency of the fertilizer laws, there is less of fraud in fertilizers than 

 formerly, but the rogues are still about, and the farmer should take care in 

 the purchase of fertilizers to deal with men of established reputation in busi- 

 ness affairs. It is far better to pay what may seem a high price for an article 

 of proved merit than to get a mixture at an apparently low price in which you 

 will pay a high price for all that is valuable in it and then have to freight a 

 lot of utterly worthless stuff put in to make weight and to make the price 

 look low. There is hardly a manufacturer who will not make for customers 

 any particular description of fertilizer mixture, and in many cases it may be 

 better to get the mixture made according to your formula than to make it 

 yourself. But it is not of the honorable fertilizer manufacturer we would 

 speak now. It is of the rogues and their dodges. 



THE MAN WITH A SECRET. 



One of the most common frauds is the man who has a fertilizer formula 

 for sale. We struck one of these fellows recently, in North Carolina. A cor- 

 respondent wrote to us that there was a man in his section selling a formula 

 and farm rights for $3.00, and he sent me the secret, asking my opinion in 

 regard to it. The whole thing was a mixture of a few well known chemicals 

 used in mixing fertilizers. These were to be mixed with a certain quantity 



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