FRAUDS IN FERTILIZERS 301 



dealer a loophole to crawl out of. The law in North Carolina 

 does not allow a manufacturer to say 3.65 to 4.15 per cent. He must give the 

 lowest percentage he claims and no more, and this law also requires that noth- 

 ing be printed on the sacks except the percentages of nitrogen, available phos- 

 phoric acid and potash. Only this and nothing more, unless, as is proposed, 

 the source from which the constituents are derived be added. 



In some of the States no value is allowed for insoluble phosphoric acid, 

 while in others it is valued at 2 cents pec pound. In regard to this we quote 

 from Dr. Roberta's book on the "Fertility of Land/' He gives a table show- 

 ing that "the average of forty-nine soil analyses shows that more than 4,000 

 pounds per acre of phosphoric acid are contained in the first eight inches 

 of surface soil, the larger part of which, presumably, is insoluble under pres- 

 ent methods of tillage. Would it be wise or profitable to purchase, at 2 cents 

 per pound, additional insoluble phosphoric acid, when the soil contains such 

 vast stores of this low grade plant food ? True, a part of the so-called insolu- 

 ble phosphoric acid may become available and produce beneficial results, but 

 since the soil is usually abundantly supplied with the same kind of material, 

 would it not be wiser to make it available by tillage than to purchase more 

 of this lazy plant food?" 



We quote the above largely because there has been special effort to put 

 insoluble phosphoric acid on the market in the form of "floats," or pulverized 

 phosphatic rock, and the soft phosphates of Florida, which are not adapted to 

 the making of acid phosphate. There is abundant evidence, however, that 

 on some soils these insoluble forms of phosphoric acid do produce good results, 

 though seldom on the immediate crop. If offered at a reasonably low price 

 there is nothing fraudulent in the selling of these articles to the farmer, pro- 

 vided a fair price is charged for the same. It would be noted that the value 

 to the farmer of insoluble phosphoric acid depends largely in the material 

 that carries it. In ground raw bones, the phosphoric acid is in an insoluble 

 form, but the material decays rapidly in the soil, when finely ground, and the 

 acid becomes available more quickly than that in the rock phosphate, but the 

 rhances are the farmer will have to pay more for it than if he could buy solu- 

 ble phosphoric acid in a superphosphate. 



As we have before remarked, the frauds in fertilizers are becoming fewer 

 annually, as the laws of the different States become more stringent and are 

 more strictly enforced. In the Cotton States, where fertilizers have long been 

 sold in immense quantities, the laws are better than in those States where the 

 use of these has but recently begun, and there should be some united effort 

 on the part of those in control of the fertilizer inspection in the various States 

 to get uniformly good laws and to enforce them. These laws are as much 



