Official Inspections 90. 103 



Under the head of "Nitrogen" in the tables are found 5 

 columns of figures under the following headings. 



1. The nitrogen from nitrates. In this column is given 

 the percentage of nitrogen present as nitrate. Nitrate nitrogen 

 is wholly and quickly available. 



2. Nitrogen from ammonia salts. In this column is given 

 the nitrogen from ammonium salts, chiefly sulphate. Ammonia 

 nitrogen is not as quickly available as nitrate nitrogen. 



3. Active nitrogen. In this column is given the nitrogen 

 obtained by subtracting the inactive nitrogen found by the alka- 

 line permanganate method from the total nitrogen found. It 

 therefore is the sum of the nitrogen from sodium nitrate, am- 

 monium sulphate, soluble organic, and active insoluble organic 

 nitrogen. It gives the available nitrogen as near as we are at 

 present able to determine by laboratory methods. While it 

 perhaps is not as accurate as the methods for determining avail- 

 able phosphoric acid, enough vegetation experiments have been 

 made to show that it can be quite safely relied on for most ni- 

 trogenous materials, excepting perhaps cottonseed meal, which 

 is very little used in fertilizers for this State. Just as available 

 phosphoric acid is a better measure than the total phosphoric 

 acid of the value of a fertilizer so the active nitrogen is a better 

 measure than is the total nitrogen. Neither of them are perfect 

 measures but they give close approximations to the value as 

 plant food of the nitrogen (ammonia) and phosphoric acid 

 carried by the goods. 



4. Total nitrogen found. 



5. Total nitrogen guaranteed. 



Phosphoric Acid. The table shows the percentages of 

 available and total phosphoric acid found and guaranteed. 



Potash. The table shows the percentages of water soluble 

 potash found and guaranteed. 



