1807.] I^UBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 38. 217 



drawn, and the time and place of drawing ; and said label shall 

 also be signed by the director or his deputy and by the party or 

 parties in interest, or their representatives present at the drawing 

 and sealing of said sample ; one of said duplicate samples shall 

 be retained by the director and the other by the party whose stock 

 was sampled. All parties violating this act shall be prosecuted 

 by the director of said station. 



Sect. 8. Chapter two hundred and ninety-six of the acts of 

 the year eighteen hundred and eiglity-cight is hereby repealed. 



Sect. 9. This act sliall take effect on the first day of Novem- 

 ber in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-six. \^A2yp'>'oved 

 April 17, 1896.'] 



3. General Work in the Chemical Laboratory. 



Analyses of materials sent on for examination. 



Notes on basic phos[)hatic slag (" slag meal") as a fertilizer. 



Action of chloride of potassium (muriate of potash) and chloride 

 of sodium (common salt) on the lime resources of the soil. 



Effect of chloride of potassium on sulphate of ammonium in 

 mixed fertilizers. 



Analyses of Materials sent on for Exavnination. 



The constantly increasing variety of waste products of 

 many branches of industry within our State and elsewhere, 

 which have proved of manurial value, has received for years 

 a serious attention. As a change in the current modes of 

 manufacture of the parent industry is at any time liable to 

 seriously aft'ect the character and chemical composition of the 

 waste or by products, it becomes necessary to repeat from 

 time to time analyses of many of these products. These 

 analyses are made, as far as our resources allow, without any 

 charge for the work, on the condition that the results are 

 public property if deemed of interest for publication. 



A brief enumeration of the more prominent substances sent 

 on for our investigation during the year 1896 may serve to 

 convey a correct idea concerning the extent and impoiiance 

 of the lal)or involved. The whole number of substances an- 

 alyzed in this connection during the year 1896 to December 

 1 amounts to 175 : Avood ashes, 51 ; cotton-seed-hull ashes, 

 7 ; swill ashes from cremation furnace, 1 ; rock phosphate, 4 ; 

 acid phosphate, 4 ; phosphatic slag, 2 ; ground bones, tank- 



