6oo APPENDIX 



of Official Agricultural Chemists (1907), page 100, Bulletin 116, of the. 

 Bureau of Chemistry, United States Department of Agriculture.) 



AN ACT to prevent fraud in the manufacture and sale of commercial 

 fertilizers. 



SECTION i. Be it enacted by the people of the State of repre- 

 sented in the General Assembly: That any person or company who shall 

 offer, sell, or expose for sale, in this State any commercial fertilizer, the 

 price of which exceeds five dollars a ton, shall affix to every package in a 

 conspicuous place on the outside thereof, or furnish to the purchasers of 

 goods sold in bulk, a plainly printed certificate, naming the materials, 

 including the filler (if any), of which the fertilizer is made, stating the 

 name or trade-mark under which the article is sold, the name of the manu- 

 facturer and the place of manufacture, and a chemical analysis, stating 

 only the minimum percentages of nitrogen in available form, of potassium 

 soluble in water, of phosphorus in available form (soluble or reverted), 

 and of insoluble phosphorus, the analyses to be made in accordance with 

 the methods adopted by the Association of Official Agricultural Chemists 

 of the United States. 



SECTION 2. Before any commercial fertilizer is sold, or offered for 

 sale, the manufacturer, importer, or party who causes it to be sold, or 



offered for sale, within the State of shall file in the office of the 



State Board of Agriculture, a certified copy of the certificate referred to 

 in Section i of this ACT, and shall deposit with the secretary of the said 

 Board of Agriculture a sealed glass jar, containing not less than one pound 

 of the fertilizer, accompanied with an affidavit that it is a fair average 

 sample. 



SECTION 3. The manufacturer, importer, or agent of any commercial 

 fertilizer exceeding five dollars per ton in price, shall pay, annually, 

 a license fee of twenty-five dollars for each one thousand tons (or fraction 

 thereof) of said fertilizer, for the privilege of selling or offering for sale, 



it would be a matter of some convenience to scientists, but of little or no practical 

 value to American agriculture. The fertilizer laws of some states (at least of 

 Kansas and Illinois) already require fertilizer guarantees to be made on the basis 

 of the actual plant-food elements; and the agricultural experiment stations of some 

 other states (at least of Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota) now report the 

 results of soil investigations in terms of the elements. 



The use of the simple element system is of great value to any state, even though 

 all adjoining states continue to use the complex systems, which require, for exam- 

 ple, that the potassium in potassium chlorid (K.C1) shall be reported in terms of 

 potash (KgO) and that the calcium, even in acid soils, shall be reported in terms of 

 quicklime (CaO). 



