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CONTROL SERIES NO. 133 

 Ground Bone 



a Corenco Raw Bone & Tankage 



Adulterated Ground Bone 



From time to time inspectors of the Fertilizer Control Service have found 

 small lots of mixtures consisting of bone meal and various other fertilizer materials 

 such as sulfate of ammonia, urea, superphosphate, phosphate rock, horn and 

 hoof meal, etc. Such mixtures have been sold as "ground bone", "reinforced 

 ground bone", etc., usually with no statement on the label to indicate that the 

 product was a mixture of several fertilizer ingredients and not a straight ground 

 bone product. Generally, the phosphoric acid guarantees in these cases were in 

 terms of total phosphoric acid. This was in violation of the provision of the 

 Massachusetts Fertilizer Law which requires that, in cases ot fertili.-:er mixtures, 

 the available phosphoric acid shall be guaranteed. 



The sale of the "ground bone" mixtures has been stopped wherever found. 

 As the dealers actually selling the products were unaware of their nature and 

 were hanaling them in good faith no legal action was taken against the dealers. 

 The mixtures were manufactured outside the Commonwealth. 



It has been claimed that the mixtures sold as "reinforced ground bone" or 

 "ground bone" were better than straight bone meal for growing plants. If this 

 line of reasoning is followed a step further it may be shown that a regular 5-10-5 

 or a 4-8-4 fertilizer is even a more balanced source of plant food for most plants 

 than is straight bone meal or the "reinforced ground bone". 



A 5-10-5 fertilizer sold for about $45.00 per ton the past season. Bone meal 

 was quoted at about $100.00 per ton. It would not have been considered ethical 

 to sell a 5-10-5 fertilizer labelled as "ground bone" for $100.00 per ton. Certainly 

 no fertilizer control official would have permitted it. 



