FERTILIZERS AND AGRICULTURAL LIME 19 



MISCELLANEOUS MATERIALS 



In addition to its regular inspection work on fertilizers and agricultural lime 

 materials, the Fertilizer Control Service each year receives a number of miscel- 

 laneous sam.ples with requests for analysis from citizens of the Commonwealth. 

 If the results of a particular analysis will be of interest to the general public or 

 to the Control Service, and the work will not interfere with the inspection duties, 

 the analysis is made and the results reported to the applicant. During the past 

 fifty or more years, a record of analytical work on a wide assortment of materials 

 has been accumulated. The following table gives the composition of a selected 

 number of these materials. 



Although time and changing requirements may have diminished interest in the 

 composition of some of the samples analyzed early in the history of the Control 

 Service, they are included in the list because of their unusual character or origin. 



It is emphasized that the results reported here should be regarded only as a 

 rough approximation of the true composition of other samples of the material 

 that the samples listed represent. Especially in the case of ashes, animal man- 

 ures, and industrial wastes, such variable factors as the sand and water content, 

 the amount and kind of litter or bedding material present, and the kind of feed 

 used, make it impossible for one set of values to be applicable to all samples of 

 hard pine ashes or to all samples of turkey manure, etc. 



The data on samples received before 1919 are taken from a special bulletin 

 issued by the A-Iassachusetts Agricultural Experiment Station in November 1919 

 and entitled "Compilations of Analyses", 



