70 Maine Agricultural Experiment Station. 1919. 



potato industry larger quantities of high grade goods than are 

 applied elsewhere in the country. Also these fertilizers are 

 applied in pretty concentrated forms without a large amount 

 of mixture with the soil. On both of these accounts there is 

 much more likely to be trouble in the growing of the crops 

 attributable directly to fertilizer in Maine than elsewhere. 

 Because of the length of time required for an analysis and the 

 shortness of time between the receipt of the goods and planting 

 time it is not practicable in most instances for the farmer to 

 know from a chemical analysis the exact quality of what he is 

 going to use. And even if these analyses were possible goods 

 would not be likely to be tested for unusual, unsuspected in- 

 gredients as was the case in 1919 when so many goods sold in 

 the State were later found to carry boron in the form of borax. 



Because of the impracticability and the physical impossi- 

 bility of analyzing all of the samples that might be collected and 

 sent to the Experiment Station or the Department of Agricul- 

 ture, it is suggested that the moment the consumer receives his 

 fertilizer for 1920 that he take, in accordance with directions 

 which he can and should have earlier procured from the Experi- 

 ment Station or the State Department of Agriculture, samples 

 of these goods. The sample should be drawn in the presence 

 of a witness, put in a tight glass jar and sealed. It should then 

 be placed in the hands of a third disinterested party, preferably 

 a town or a grange officer, the sample to be called for later if 

 needed. A properly taken, properly sealed and stored sample 

 would then be available in case later in the year any question 

 came up as to the relation between the fertilizer used and the 

 crop. There are hundreds of. growers' in Maine the present 

 year that if they could have had such samples would be on a 

 much firmer footing than they now are, and it would have en- 

 abled the State Department of Agriculture to have handled this 

 severe injury, which unquestionably came from the use of cer- 

 tain fertilizers in a far more satisfactory manner, from the 

 standpoint of the Department, the consumer and the manu- 

 facturer. 



The best safeguard possible for the consumer is to buy 

 from a company whose integrity he holds high and immediately 

 upon the receipt of the goods, select an authoritative sample 



