Purchase of Fertilizers 159 



come into competition with them without such protection, 

 and to the consumers, because it protects them from frau- 

 dulent products. 



Laws alone do not fully protect. 



Laws alone, however, are not sufficient to fully protect 

 the farmer in this respect. He must possess, in addition, 

 a knowledge of what constitutes a good fertilizer, and 

 must be able to determine from the analysis whether 

 there is a proper relation between the guarantee and the 

 selling price, and whether the materials that have been 

 used are of good quality. The fact that there is a very 

 decided lack of the right sort of intelligence on this point, 

 is shown by the results of the work of the different ferti- 

 lizer control stations. These demonstrate clearly that 

 farmers do, in many cases, pay exorbitant prices for their 

 fertilizer constituents, not because the manufacturer did 

 not sell what he claimed to sell, but because the price 

 charged by the dealer was far in excess of that warranted 

 by the guarantee. For example, it has been repeatedly 

 shown that of two farmers in the same neighborhood, the 

 one who studies the matter and understands the relation 

 of guarantee to selling price, may pay 15 cents a pound 

 for his nitrogen, while the other, who does not study the 

 matter, buys on the ton basis, and does not know that 

 there should be such a relation between the two, may pay 

 30 cents a pound for the same quality of the same constit- 

 uent. This may be illustrated by the following examples : 



Two brands are offered, made up from the same kind 

 and quality of materials. No. 1 is guaranteed to contain : 



Nitrogen 1% 



Phosphoric acid (available) 6% 



Potash 1% 



