PRESENT CONDITION OF MANUFACTURERS. 131 



farmers are getting more careful and cautious in 

 purchasing fertilizers they must know what it 

 contains before they buy." We shall show the 

 reader the cost to the manufacturer, and real 

 value to the farmer, of the so called improved 

 manures., manufactured to suit the increased 

 caution of buyers, and causing, as the manu- 

 facturers say, greatly reduced profits. When we 

 have done this, one can readily imagine what 

 the profits of this fertilizing business was, in the 

 good old times of salt cake, land plaster, gas- 

 lime, marl, and even coal ashes. The reader 

 can see from the analyses of many of these im- 

 proved manures, that the greedy appetite for 

 extortionate gain manifested by manufacturers, 

 has grown by what it fed on. 



But if this investigating and cautious spirit 

 exhibited by the farmer has not materially 

 benefited him, by inducing the manufacturers to 

 make a better article, it has had one good effect, 

 that of greatly reducing their sales ; thus proving 

 that though fraud and deceit may flourish for a 

 season, yet a day of reckoning will come : " The 

 mills of the gods grind slow, but exceeding fine." 

 The present condition of some of these manu- 

 facturers who, last winter, made large prepara- 

 tions for heavy sales in the South, and increased 

 sales in the Eastern and Middle States, this 

 spring, and whose factories and storehouses are 



