Annual  Report  for  1910  of  the  Consulting  Chemist.  301 
The  price  of  the  latter  has  somewhat  increased,  and  there 
would  seem  to  be  also  a certain  reluctance  on  the  part  of 
stock-owners  in  feeding  with  it. 
There  has  not  been  any  new  material  introduced,  either  in 
the  case  of  feeding  stuffs  or  of  fertilisers,  which  is  of  any 
particular  importance,  but  renewed  attention  has  been  drawn 
to  the  cultivation  of  sugar  beet  and  the  manufacture  of  beet 
sugar. 
Though  no  new  form  of  adulteration  has  been  brought  to 
light,  there  has  been  abundant  evidence  of  the  need  of 
continued  watchfulness. 
The  private  circulars  issued  to  Members  of  the  Society 
have  borne  testimony  to  this.  The  cases  published  in  these 
include  : — 
(1)  Middlings  adulterated  with  rice  husk. 
(2)  Barley  meal  containing  husks  of  barley  and  oat,  with 
weed  seeds. 
(3)  Sharps  containing  weed  seeds  and  excessive  sand. 
(4)  “ Bombay  ” cotton  cake  sold  as  “ Egyptian.” 
(5)  Compound  manure  sold  as  “ Pure  Dissolved  Bones.” 
(6)  “ Round  Oil  Feeding  Cake  ” with  excessive  sand. 
The  last  two  cases  deserve  special  attention  ; in  (5)  the 
material  sold  under  the  name  of  “ Pure  Dissolved  Bones  ” was 
supplied  by  a Farmers’  Co-operative  Society,  and  it  would 
appear  than  one  cannot  rely  even  upon  organisations  de- 
signed specially  to  protect  the  farmer.  In  (6)  the  cake  in 
question  was  one  to  which  attention  had  been  drawn  on 
several  previous  occasions  in  the  Reports  of  the  Chemical 
Committee. 
It  is  satisfactory  to  note  that  the  adulteration  of  offals, 
though  it  has  not  altogether  ceased,  has  been  less  prevalent 
than  previously. 
The  Annual  Report  for  1909  of  the  working  of  the 
Fertilisers  and  Feeding  Stuffs  Act  shows  that,  in  England, 
2,512  samples  were  examined  as  against  2,314  in  1908. 
Of  these,  584  only  were  “ formal  ” samples.  Thirty-eight  cases 
of  breach,  or  suspected  breach,  of  the  Act  were  reported,  but 
in  only  four  of  these  was  any  conviction  obtained. 
The  unsatisfactoriness  of  the  working  of  the  Act  has  been 
more  and  more  made  prominent,  and  the  Council  of  the 
Royal  Agricultural  Society  have  again  drawn  attention  to  the 
urgent  need  of  amendment  of  the  Act. 
By  way  of  comparison,  reference  may  be  made  here  to  the 
Canadian  Fertilisers  Act  of  1909,  which  is  a far  simpler  and 
more  workable  one  than  our  English  Act.  It  is  comprised  in 
five  small  pages,  and  the  regulations  with  regard  to  sampling 
