54 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 



Duties of the Director. The law also imposes upon the 

 Director of the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station certain 

 duties, which are: 



The issuing of licenses to such manufacturers as comply with 

 the above named requirements. 



The analysis of the samples deposited by the manufacturer. 



The selection of samples in the open market of all brands 

 of fertilizers sold or offered for sale in the State, with the subse- 

 quent analysis of the sample. 



The publication of bulletins or reports, giving the results of 

 tne inspection. 



In accordance with the law, two commercial fertilizer bulletins 

 were printed during the year. The first (33) was published 

 early in March and contained the analyses of the samples 

 received from the manufacturers, guaranteed to represent, with- 

 in reasonable limits, the goods to be placed upon the market 

 later. The second bulletin (38) contained the results of the 

 analyses of the samples collected in the open market by the 

 officers of the Station, and was published in October. 



One hundred and thirty-seven brands were offered in the 

 State during the year. The station officers analyzed one hun- 

 dred and thirty-two of these; the other four were offered in small 

 amounts and samples were not drawn, either because they were 

 not found by the collector or because the amount found in any 

 one place was too small to insure their fairly representing the 

 goods, 



A comparison of the percentages guaranteed by the manufac- 

 turers samples and those collected by a station representative in 

 different parts of the State, shows that, as a rule, the fertilizers 

 sold in the State are well up to the minimum guarantee. In a 

 few instances the particular lots of fertilizers sampled were not 

 quite as good as they should be; there was, however, no case 

 which appeared to be an attempt to defraud. The comparisons 

 indicate that the manufacturers do not intend to do much more 

 than make good the minimum guarantee, and this is all the pur- 

 chaser can safely expect 



The tabular statement which follows, summarizes the com- 

 parisons of manufacturer's and station samples with the guaran- 

 tee. As a rule, the manufacturer's samples are somewhat better 

 than those collected by the station representative. 



