Quarterly Report of the Chemical Committee, June, 1892 . 351 
report, together with the names of the dealers who supplied the 
respective substances, should, if the Council thought fit, be published 
in the Society’s Journal and in the agricultural newspapers. 
It is undeniable that much benefit to the farming community 
has followed this action of the Council ; but at the same time it has 
exposed the Society to a certain amount of risk, as instanced in the 
cases at law which it has been called upon to defend. In addition 
to this, gre.at difficulty has been experienced in the majority of cases 
by the unwillingness of members to give the full particulars relating 
to the different transactions. 
For tlie guidance of its membcns, the Society has from time to 
time issued directions for the purchase of manures and feeding- 
stuffs, and these are published in each number of the Journal. 
These directions set out the guarantees of composition and quality 
under which materials, when able to be defined, should be bought. 
Tlie Society has also issued for the use of members, forms of con- 
tract which it has I’ecommended to be signed by tlie contracting 
parties in cases of purchase of feeding-cakes, so that the purchaser 
may be armed with a written guarantee according to the Society’s 
standard. 
In addition, in the quarterly reports of tlie Chemical Committee, 
notes of warning as to current adulterations and of advice as to pre- 
cautions that should be taken in the purcliase of particular materials 
have been given, and this system has been continued tliroughout. 
The experience of the Society has, however, been, that agri- 
culturists have not sufficiently availed themselves of the advantages 
which membership conveys, nor, if already members, of tlie benefits 
the chemical privileges offer. 
The Chemical Committee feel confident that when members take 
the precaution of obtaining a guarantee in accordance with the 
terms laid down for the guidance of purchasers, there is little or no 
difficulty in obtaining a genuine article, or in obtaining redress in 
case of a deficiency of quality. 
The great difficulty that has been experienced is that of securing 
to members that their purchases shall be made under definite de- 
scriptions, and that the invoices shall clearly describe the article pur- 
chased, in terms which admit of no doubt as to their meaning. 
This is well illustrated by the term “ linseed-cake.” It was 
for a long time maintained that under this name might be sold the 
residue left after the expression of the oil from seed not necessarily 
linseed or.ly, but from what was known in the trade as “ linseed as 
imported.” Such seed was admitted to contain admixture of various 
kinds, much inferior to linseed, and might even contain materials of 
an injurious nature. 
The Society for many years carried on a struggle against this 
practice, and it may be said that in great measure owing to its 
action in counselling its members to insist on having “pure linseed- 
cake ” only, and to see that the invoices described the cake as such, 
as also by the repeated publication (with vendors’ names) of cases 
where impure cakes were sold under the name “ linseed-cake,” the ' 
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