THE CALL TO AMHERST 35 



In January 1873 he printed an exhaustive paper on 

 * Commercial Fertilizers/ Able and full of valuable 

 facts and suggestions, it was pronounced the most im- 

 portant essay on that subject which had yet appeared 

 in this country. One of the immediate results of the 

 discussion induced by this report was the enactment of 

 a law the first of its kind in the United States 

 regulating then* manufacture and sale; or, in the trench- 

 ant language of Goessmann, its author, the object of 

 the law is to compel the dealers in these articles 'to 

 state what they sell and to sell what they state.' This law 

 for fertilizer control, compelling commercial manures 

 to be sold according to a guaranteed composition to be 

 ascertained by chemical analysis, thereby protecting 

 the honest dealer and manufacturer as well as the 

 farmer, revolutionized the fertilizer trade of the coun- 

 try, and served as the model and inspiration for all 

 subsequent legislation of the kind in other states. For 

 thirty-five years Dr. Goessmann was charged with the 

 administration and execution of this law in Massa- 

 chusetts. 



Early in the year he had been appointed Chemist 

 of the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture. With 

 the passage of the fertilizer law, he became ex officio a 

 member of the Board and State Inspector of Fertil- 

 izers. One of the duties of the State Inspector was to 

 make an annual report to the Board of Agriculture. 

 Professor Julius A. Stockhardt of Saxony, the distin- 

 guished agricultural chemist, closes his review of 

 Goessmann's first report on commercial fertilizers as 

 follows: 'There can be no doubt that in America 



