68 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



(4) The farm side of buying plant food. 



(T)) The market side of buying plant food. 



(6) Utilization of home resources. 



Let us consider these divisions of our subject in the 

 order named ; — 



(1) How shall the fertilizer control most efficiently aid 

 both interested parties, — the manufacturer and the far- 

 mer? And I remark, first, that nobody is the gainer if a 

 business is unnecessarily hampered by law. Any addi- 

 tional trouble and expense laid upon the manufacturer of 

 a commodity is sure to react upon the consumer. It 

 would be a great gain, therefore, if some uniform law, as 

 simple in its provisions as would be consistent with its 

 efficiency, could be adopted by all these States. This 

 would make it easier for the dealer to promptly and cor- 

 rectly comply with the legal requirements, and would aid 

 the State officials in organizing their work on a uniform 

 and thoroughly efficient basis. That such unification of 

 the legal control of fertilizers will be accomplished, seems 

 too much to expect. We must wait for the millennium, I 

 fear, before reaching such an ideal result. 



In the second place, I observe that farmers should not 

 attribute to the results of fertilizer inspection any unwar- 

 ranted significance or value. The chief object of this in- 

 spection is to determine whether the manufacturer is selling 

 goods that correspond to their guaranteed composition, and 

 here the required duty of the official chemist ends. The 

 tables he publishes in no sense constitute advice as to what 

 fertilizer a particular farmer should purchase, nor is the 

 column of money valuations, if such be given, a column of 

 agricultural valuations, when considered with reference to 

 a particular farm. All that the chemist affirms, or intends 

 to affirm, is that a sample of John Doe's fertilizer, taken at 

 Doetown, was found to contain such and such percentages 

 of nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash in such and such 

 conditions. If the chemist states a money valuation, he 

 only declares that the plant food in John Doe's goods is 

 being sold in other materials for approximately a certain 

 sum. If the fertilizer be rich in nitrogen, that sum is likely 

 to Ije large ; but if phosphoric acid preponderates, and only 



