158 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



which I hope the Board of Agriculture will receive this 

 winter. I hope they will not think it wicked to lobby at the 

 state house until they drive out the herd who come there 

 with their pockets full of money to lobby against the law, as 

 a certain other herd were once driven out of the temple ; and 

 that the State of Massachusetts, remembering the sterility of 

 its hills, and the vast number of people who ought to be fed 

 from the products of its soil, will say, "This is a matter of so 

 much importance that we will make a law that shall com- 

 pletely defend and protect our people in this respect, and we 

 will have a state inspector who shall receive a salary from 

 the Commonwealth, and not be compellQd to go mousing 

 around after these fertilizer manufacturers, to see if he 

 cannot filch fifteen dollars out of their pockets, by analyzing 

 a fertilizer which has been already analyzed. He shall come 

 up to the dignity of a man ; he shall have an ofiice, and it 

 shall be his duty as inspector to overlook the manufacturers 

 of these articles, and say to them, — 'This is to be made so 

 and so ; here is a paper to put upon your bag, or box, or 

 bale, and it shall go out to the Commonwealth. Then, if I 

 catch you adulterating these things, you shall pay a fine of 

 fifty or a hundred dollars, and, finally, the state prison shall 

 be your reward.'" It seems to me that this is a point we 

 should make : that the state inspector must be a salaried 

 officer, and receive such compensation for his services that 

 Mr. Lawrence, or Mr. Bowker, or anybody else, cannot buy 

 him up as the liquor-sellers buy up the police officers. Make 

 him perfectly independent ; then make the manufacturers 

 pay a license to manufacture and sell, and let them tax us 

 twenty-five or fifty cents or a dollar a ton more for their 

 fertilizers, to get their pay. 



. Now, I appeal to you, gentlemen of the Board of Agri- 

 culture and farmers, if this would not be a sensible law? 

 Could not we who use fertilizers aflbrd to pay twenty-five or 

 fifty cents or even a dollar a ton extra, if we could have con- 

 fidence that this thing was managed right? Can you control 

 the thing in any other or better way than that, by any 

 sort of machinery ? In order to do it you must amend the 

 present law, retaining one or two features of it, and put 

 such a public sentiment into the legislature this winter, that 



