2/8 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I908. 



The Bowker Fertilizer Company licensed for the present year, 

 among other brands of fertilizer, five different brands of Stock- 

 bridge Manures, as follows : Stockbridge Manure A for Pota- 

 toes, etc., Formula 5-7-10. Stockbridge Special Complete 

 Manure for Seeding Down, Permanent Dressing and Legumes, 

 Formula 3-6-10. Stockbridge Special Complete Manure for 

 Quick Growth and for Forcing, Formula 6-4-6. Stockbridge 

 Special Complete Manure for Corn and all Grain Crops, etc., 

 Formula 4-10-7. Stockbridge Special Complete Manure for 

 Potatoes and Vegetables, etc., Formula 4-6-10. 



By means of cleverly devised tags some of these brands, if 

 not all, are sold for a variety of crops, and by means of this 

 scheme the company is not only avoiding the payment of several 

 analysis fees but also apparently is using these few brands to 

 compete with two or three times that number of brands put out 

 by other companies. For example, tags which are labeled 

 "Stockbridge Special Complete Manure for Seeding Down, 

 Permanent Dressing and Legumes" according to the brand given 

 on the license certificate ; but across the end of some of the tags, 

 in the most prominent position and in larger type, are the words 

 "Fruit and Shade Trees," followed by "Hardy Shrubs, etc.," 

 in smaller letters, and preceded by the words "Directions for" 

 in letters even smaller. In a similar manner there are other 

 tags for this same brand which read "Directions for Straw- 

 berries & Small Fruits; Blackberries, Currents, etc.," as well 

 as still other tags reading "Directions for Seeding Down." In 

 the same way for the brand licensed as "Stockbridge Special 

 Complete Manure for Quick Growth and for Forcing" there 

 are at least three kinds of tags reading "Directions for Celery 

 and Lettuce," "Directions for Cabbage and Cauliflower, etc.," 

 and "Directions for Top Dressing Grass, etc." 



These different tags would give almost any buyer the impres- 

 sion that he was getting a fertilizer designed especially for fruit 

 and shade trees, or small fruits, or seeding down, or for cab- 

 bages, etc., and this impression would be all the more likely 

 because of the fact that the formula is printed in small, incon- 

 spicuous type in connection with reading matter. 



