DEFECT IN THE LAW. 157 



Lawrence, nor my friend Bowker, who are going to l3e just 

 right, but the men who go into this business simply as a 

 specuhition, and do not care a penny what they sell you, 

 provided they can make money out of it ; — and there are lots 

 of them, are there not, Mr. Lawrence? 



Mr. Lawrence. That is true. 



Prof. Stockbridge. It is true, and I know it. Now, we 

 want a law, not for good men, but for evil-doers, because one 

 evil-doer will do mischief enough in a county to prevent the 

 use of these fertilizers, and so to cause a very marked dete- 

 rioration in the quantity of the crops grown there. 



Now, let Mr. Bowker and Mr. Lawrence, as the repre- 

 sentatives of the whole fertilizer manufacturing community, 

 go with us to the legislature, and we will get a law that shall 

 be efficient, and hold you and us up to the mark. Does the 

 present law do it? I have the law here. The first section 

 of the law says that the fertilizer manufacturer shall put upon 

 his bags, boxes or bales, wjiatever contains the material, 

 the statement that this fertilizer contains so much potash, so 

 much nitrogen, so much phosphoric acid, so much returned 

 phosphoric acid, and the material from which it is made ; but 

 it does not state that the state chemist or inspector shall have 

 any hand in this business. The manufacturer may go to any 

 scalawag, and get an analysis for five or ten dollars, and put 

 it on. The state inspector is not known in this operation at 

 all. But by and by, after the manufacturer has put this 

 analysis on, and sent his material out, this state inspector (a 

 gentleman connected with the Massachusetts Agricultural 

 College, I believe) is expected to go mousing around the 

 Commonwealth, ferreting out as a detective, the frauds of 

 these fertilizer manufacturers, and then come down on them 

 and say, "Here, I have analyzed your fertilizer — give me 

 fifteen dollars!" "Well," says the fertilizer manufacturer, 

 "I shan't do it. I paid a chemist in Boston to analyze my 

 fertilizer, and when you get fifteen dollars out of me, you 

 will get it at the end of the law." 



Now, I say, the law is defective in that respect. It Avas 

 the best brother Moore could get, and he fought like a 

 Trojan to get it last winter. I am glad that he got it, 

 because it will serve as an entering wedge for a better law. 



