348 Annual Report of the Consulting Chemist. 
X. — Annual Report of the Consulting Chemist for 1874. 
It will, no doubt, be gratifying to the Chemical Committee to 
learn, as the result of my experience in the examination of various 
kinds of feeding-stuffs and fertilising-matters, during the last 
twelve months that fewer instances of fraudulently compounded 
oilcakes and of grossly adulterated artificial manures have been 
brought under my notice by members of the Royal Agricultural 
Society than in any preceding year. 
Ever since the Council decided to give immediate publicity to 
the Quarterly Reports of the Chemical Committee, the analytical 
work for individual members has largely increased ; and although 
not quite so many samples of artificial manures were sent to the 
Laboratory between December 1873 and December 1874, as 
in the preceding twelve months, the number of analyses for bona 
Jide members of the Society still remains nearly double of what 
it was before the publication of the Quarterly Reports of cases ot 
dealings in inferior or adulterated manures, cakes, &c. 
The decided diminution in the number of cases of inferior or 
adulterated cakes and artificial manures, which has been specially 
marked during the last twelve months, is not due, as might be sup- 
posed, to a greatly diminished number of samples having been sent 
to me during that period, but is no doubt the natural result of the 
endeavours of the Council to check transactions in such articles. 
There is no longer any difficulty in obtaining pure linseed- 
cake, or genuine Peruvian guano, or nitrate of soda unmixed 
with common salt ; and farmers are learning more and more this 
important lesson : — to insist upon being furnished by the dealers 
with guaranteed analyses when they buy artificial manures and 
feeding-stuffs which may be prepared of various degrees of 
concentration, and the true money value of which cannot be 
ascertained without submitting them to analysis. 
In several parts of England it has become a common practice 
of farmers to buy mineral superphosphate simply as a source of 
soluble phosphate of lime, and to pay a fixed price fpr each per 
cent, of soluble phosphate which the bulk is found to contain 
on delivery. This excellent plan of buying mineral superphos- 
phate is rapidly extending over the country. It is not always 
possible nor convenient for a manufacturer to make from day 
to day mineral superphosphate of the exact strength which he 
desires to produce. It thus happens that the superphosphate 
which is sent out fiom time to time from the works varies to 
some extent in strength ; and as the commercial value of this 
manure depends entirely upon the amount of soluble phosphate 
it contains, it is but fair that the buyer should pay for any extra 
quantity of soluble phosphate which the bulk may contain, on 
