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on agriculture and chemistry: ** Shall we say ammonia or nitrogen, phosphoric 
ai i<l or phosphorus, potash or potassium?" 
rour committee held a meeting in March. 1904. in New York, at which various 
matters were under consideration, and at that time it was deemed by the com- 
mit tee Inadvisable, in view of the fact that a large number of the States had 
passed laws using the terms phosphoric acid and potash, to go back and undo all 
that work and change to potassium and phosphorus. 
C. <;. Hopkins, of Illinois. This matter of the terms to he used in connection 
with fertilizers, as well as in stating analyses of other matters, as soils and ash, 
Is now also being considered by the Association of Official Agricultural Chem- 
ists, having been taken up by that association at the St. Louis meeting. A com- 
mittee has been appointed by that association to consider the entire question of 
nomenclature of such materials as require chemical analysis and statement of 
the constituents found, and I should be sorry to- see final action taken by this 
association at this time. It seems to me it would be well to appoint a com- 
mittee to act jointly with the committee from that association to bring in a 
joint report at our next annual meeting, rather than to take any final action at 
This time. I think our first duty as an association is to the American farmer. 
The thing which will ultimately be of the greatest benefit to the American 
agriculturist is the thing we should do. I realize we have considerable litera- 
ture pertaining to soils and fertilizers in America, and that we have quite a 
diversified system of naming the three principal constituents of fertilizers. In 
the literature in perhaps one-third of the States they say ammonia, and in 
two-thirds of the States they now say nitrogen, under State laws. In nearly 
all the State literature we see phosphoric acid when phosphorus pentoxid is 
meant, although in any of the other sciences — such as pharmacy and medicine — 
when they say phosphoric acid they mean that. The literature which comes 
from the U. S. Department of Agriculture says potassium, and not potash, and 
it says P0 4 instead of P 2 5 , so there is by no means perfect harmony in the 
conditions we now have. It has seemed to me the longer I have studied the 
question of soils and fertilizers the more necessary it is that we simplify this 
unnecessarily complicated situation. I suppose many of you have tried to 
explain to the practical common-sense farmer why it is we pay for potash (K 2 0) 
when we buy potassium as chlorid (KC1). That is, we value potassium chlorid 
on the basis of potassium oxid, although there is no potassium oxid in potassium 
chlorid. In my own experience I have found that the situation becomes 
ridiculous to the common-sense farmer, and scientists are responsible for it. 
We persist because it would require a little extra clerical work to go over our 
records and make some changes. Surely we must do the thing which is sim- 
plest for the practical man. American agriculture is going to advance as the 
farmer understands the business. 
H. J. Wheeler. I wish to say that the committee is in most hearty accord 
with Doctor Hopkins in his idea of simplifying matters. But this association 
and the association of chemists made certain recommendatons a number of 
years ago and both have been working hand in hand to secure the adoption 
of laws in the various States in accordance with a certain line of uniformity, 
and many of the States of the Union have already, after long effort, been 
persuaded to change their laws in accordance with those recommendations. 
To make any change to-day would mean to undo all we have done in the last 
eight or ten years. It is quite another proposition to take up the matter of 
nomenclature in regard to ordinary station work. I therefore move that the 
matter of the nomenclature used in the reporting of experiment station work 
be referred to the section on experiment station work for their consideration. 
The motion was carried. (See p. 117.) 
