234 AMERICAN MANURES. 



condemned ; and it is much to be regretted that the laws of this 

 country afford too many chances for successfully carrying on 

 this species of fraud." 



No. 7. " In the case of manures their adulteration is attended 

 with several evils besides the more direct one of robbing those 

 who purchase the adulterated article. The fact of manures 

 being known to be extensively adulterated tends to restrict 

 their use, and to withhold the good that a more extended use 

 of these materials is calculated to confer both on the farmer 

 and on the community. For the same reason the trade of 

 honest manufacturers is injured and confined. Under the 

 name of manures all kinds of mixtures are sold, often worth but 

 a fraction of the price paid for them, and in too many instances 

 altogether worthless. The frauds practised by dishonest man- 

 ure dealers consist of diluting or weakening of standard man- 

 ures by the admixture of less valuable or worthless material, 

 as tanner's bark, road or street scrapings, old mortar, spent 

 wood-ashes, coal ashes, or other material ; and in order to give 

 them apparent value, animal matter with a horrid stench is 

 mixed with these in some instances (many persons are induced 

 to think that a manure, in order to be good, must have a vile 

 smell, than which there can be no greater mistake). Such mix- 

 tures are brought into the market as new compounds under all 

 sorts of high-flown names, which often indicate properties in 

 every way the reverse of those possessed by the so-called man- 

 ures they represent." 



No. 8. ' By a rudimentary knowledge of Chemistry, manures 

 can be tested with sufficient accuracy to assure their genuine- 

 ness ; various operations upon the farm can be wonderfully im- 

 proved by studying Nature's processes, for in these we see the 

 working of the Divine hand, at once so wonderful, so simple, 

 and so well adapted to the wants of mankind. In Mechanics, 

 we have a help which is daily being increased, by the genius of 

 our people, and the farmer can, by devising various simple 

 changes in machines, no doubt increase their usefulness, or the 

 uses of them." 



No. 9. " I do not forget that science is in its infancy; there 

 are numerous secrets which Nature refuses to give up, and 

 which, with all the chemical and mechanical aids available, the 



