50 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[February, 
est quantities to advantage. The fertilizer market 
in Saxony and Prussia, where the Experiment Sta¬ 
tion has the universal sanction and confidence of 
the farmers, is just as settled and satisfactory as 
any branch of trade, and the farmers there buy 
superphosphate, guano, potash salts, etc., with as 
much security of fair dealing as we can feel in the 
purchase of sugar or nails.” 
The only way to get good fertilizers at fair prices, 
is to know what makes them good, to understand 
what is the composition of the articles in the mar¬ 
ket, and select the ones which furnish the most of 
valuable materials, in the best forms, and at the 
lowest cost. In proportion as buyers make their 
selections in this way will competition be excited 
among sellers, based upon goodness of quality and 
fairness in price: poor articles will be driven from 
the market, and good ones sold, bought, and used 
with profit. To use them most profitably, we must 
understand what materials our soils and crops need; 
select the ones that furnish the lacking materials, 
and apply them properly. In farming, as in other 
business, the use of brains is necessary for success. 
Numerous inquiries by visitors and by letters 
from nearly every one of the older States of the 
Union, in regard to the analyses of commercial fer¬ 
tilizers, and the “ Fertilizer Control System ” intro¬ 
duced in Connecticut by the State Agricultural 
Experiment Station, will, I trust, warrant some ex¬ 
planations here. The system adopted in Connecti¬ 
cut is substantially the same as has, with various 
modifications of detail,, come into quite general 
usage in Germany and other Europeau countries. 
The essential features are 
1st. An agreement made with the Station by 
dealers in fertilizers to sell their fertilizers by guar¬ 
anteed analysis, the verification of the analysis be¬ 
ing left to the Station, and : 
2nd. A provision whereby purchasers may have 
samples of the articles they buy analyzed by the 
Station at small cost* or for nothing. 
In order to preclude all chance for,mistake or evil 
as to the.precise terms of the arrangement referred 
to, a form of agreement has been signed by the deal¬ 
ers who desired to place their wares, as sold in the 
State, under the supervision of the Station. This 
provides that all fertilizers sold in this Slate by the 
signer, or his authorized agents, at any price above 
$15.00 per ton, (except crude fish scrap), shall be 
guaranteed to contain certain specified percentages 
of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, potash, etc., etc.; 
that the official analyses made at th Station, shall 
be accepted as decisive of the correctness of the 
guaranteed statements of composition • and that 
the stocks of fertilizers kept for sale in the State by 
the signers of the agreement, or their agents, shall 
at all times be open to the inspection of the officers 
of the Station. 
Three years ago, at the annual meeting of the 
Connecticut Board of Agriculture, were presented 
6ome comparisons between commercial fertilizers 
in use in Connecticut, and similar articles sold in 
Germany, where the control systems were in vogue. 
From these it appeared that the farmers of Con¬ 
necticut had been paying at least 60 or 70 per cent 
more for the valuable ingredients in their fertilizers, 
than their brethren or the other side of the Atlan¬ 
tic. The cost of the raw materials is no greater 
here than there. In fact, large.quantities are ex¬ 
ported to the other side of the Atlantic, to be there 
manufactured into fertilizers. The cost of manu¬ 
facturing is not much greater here. There was no 
just reason why farmers should not buy as good 
fertilizers and as cheaply here as in Europe. To 
aid them in doing so a control system was suggest¬ 
ed: The results of its introduction are interesting. 
■ At the annual Connecticut Farmers’ Convention 
last December, a report of the first year’s work of 
the State Experiment Station was given. This in¬ 
cluded accounts of analyses of fertilizers, among 
the rest, some 35 samples of articles sold before the 
establishment of the Station, and some 77 samples 
sold under its supervision. The number of these 
articles seemed ample, and the range in quality 
was certainly wide enough to afford a fair exhibit 
of the effect of the supervision exercised by the 
Station. Basing the comparison upon the costs of 
valuable ingredients, as determined from composi¬ 
tion and selling prices, it stands as follows: 
Valuable Ingredients.* Average Cost per Pound. 
In fertilizers sold In fertilizers sold 
before establish- under supervision 
ment of Station. of Station. 
Nitrogen....47.0 cts. 23.0 cts. 
Soluble Phosphoric Acid.. 18.0 cts. 14.0 cts. 
insoluble Phosphoric Acid..11. 2 / 6 cts. 5. Vs cts. 
If, instead of taking the fertilizers all together, 
we select a single class, and one of the most impor¬ 
tant ones, the nitrogenous (ammoniated) phos¬ 
phates, the comparison will stand as follows: 
Valuable Ingredients. Average Cost per Pound. 
In fertilizers sold In fertilizers sold 
before establish- under supervision 
ment of Station. of Station. 
Nitrogen....59 2 / 5 cts. 24 9 / 10 cts. 
Soluble Phosphoric Acid.. .19y 2 cts - 15>/io cts. 
Insoluble Phosphoric Acid.. 2iy 10 cts. 5y 5 cts. 
In brief, the average actual cost of the fertilizers 
sold under the supervision of the Station is less 
than half that of those sold before the Station was 
established. 
To make such a comparison as the above ab¬ 
solutely accurate, it would be necessary to take in¬ 
to account the total quantity, composition, and 
price of each article sold in the State. And while, 
on the one hand, more of the better class of ar¬ 
ticles analyzed are sold, on the other, there are 
doubtless a good many inferior articles which we 
did not get hold of at all. The figures doubtless 
under-rate rather than over-rate the benefit accruing 
to the farmers of the State from the introduction 
of the “ Control System.” 
The amount paid for fertilizers for the 25,508 
farms in Connecticut, is variously estimated from 
$500,000 to $1,000,000 per annum. Single towns 
are stated to use from $30,000 to $50,000 worth per 
annum. Taking the lower estimate ($500,000), if 
the Experiment Station can save only one-tenth or 
one-fifth instead of the one-half indicated above, 
the annual saving in the first cost of the fertilizers 
bought by the farmers of the State would be from 
$50,000 to $100,000 per annum. And when we con¬ 
sider the loss in the use of land and in tillage when 
poor articles are applied, the advantage that comes 
from being certain of the quality of articles bought, 
and from the more rational use that comes with 
better understanding of the nature of these articles, 
it is clear that the benefit must be much greater 
than these figures indicate. 
The advantage that would bd gained in most of 
the other of our older States from the introduction 
of such an enterprise as I have been speaking of, 
would doubtless be much greater than in Connecti¬ 
cut. The trade in fertilizers is much larger in many 
of them, and there are but few in which as much 
has been done in this direction, as had been done 
in Connecticut previous to the establishment of 
the Station, particularly by the State Board of Agri¬ 
culture, and its chemist, Prof. Johnson, who is the 
pioneer in this sort of work in this country. 
The sale of fertilizers by guaranteed analyses, and 
either inspection by competent authorities, or what 
is very much more important and useful, the provi¬ 
sion of means whereby purchasers may have the cor¬ 
rectness of stated analyses tested at little or no cost 
to themselves, are indispensable features of any con¬ 
trol system. Just how the first of these provisions 
will be best enforced in any given State, will depend 
on circumstances. One most important point to be 
secured is the mutual cooperation of leading farm¬ 
ers and dealers. The rather remarkable success in 
this respect gained here, was due to several causes. 
The people were educated up to the point where 
they saw the good of it. The plan was initiated 
and executed by the Advisory Committee of the 
Station, a body which includes some of the most 
influential farmers of the State. The movement 
was made to appear, as well as to be, one on the part 
of the farmers, and dealers saw it was for their in¬ 
terest to join. Some thirty individuals, firms, and 
companies, including many of the heaviest manu¬ 
factures in the country, and nearly all of the more 
influential ones who sell in Connecticut, have allied 
* The number of articles containing potash was so few and 
its quantities so small, that it is omitted in the above com¬ 
parisons. 
themselves with the Station. They have done so 
because they have seen that this was the surest 
means to secure the best patronage, exclude ille¬ 
gitimate competition, and put their trade on the 
most just and profitable basis, 
I have insisted strongly upon the need of means 
whereby purchasers shall be enabled to have sam¬ 
ples of fertilizers they buy analyzed at small cost 
or for nothing. The importance of this is well il¬ 
lustrated by some of the facts (that have come un¬ 
der the notice of the Station. One of the worst 
frauds discovered was an article sold to several 
members of a Farmer’s Club, who had taken spe¬ 
cial pains to have some of the fertilizers they were 
about to purchase analyzed in advance, but had, in 
this case, taken the assurances of an agent that his 
article “had been analyzed and was excellent.” 
Another of the poorest articles analyzed was one 
of a number of samples sent by manufacturers to 
another Farmer’s Club, and brought by the latter 
to the Station for examination. The great difficul¬ 
ty in the way of analyses is the expense, which at 
fair rates will vary from ten to sixty dollars. For 
an ordinary superphosphate, a fair price is thirty 
dollars or more. At the Station here analyses for 
public use are performed gratuitously so far as the 
time at the disposal of the chemists will allow. 
While a large number of analyses have been made 
during the past year, in no case has any charge 
been made to farmers for whom they have been 
performed. W. O. Atwater. 
Ogden Farm Papers—No. 84. 
BY GEORGE E. WARING, JR. 
The question of summer-fallowing^ to which I 
have referred in earlier numbers of these papers, is 
brought again to mind by the receipt of an analysis 
from Prof. Atwater, of some earth-closet manure 
that I submitted to him for examination. I have 
on hand about two tons of this material, which I 
have purposely kept, in order to see how often 
earth (or anthracite coal ashes) may be used with¬ 
out losing its efficiency. The experiment was be¬ 
gun six years ago. A little of the manure has been 
used on flower beds, etc., and a little fresh ashes 
has been added, but not enough to effect the gen¬ 
eral result. The closets are filled, on an average, 
about six times a year. When the vaults are 
emptied, the product is simply heaped up in a well 
ventilated cellar, and left to dry ; the heap is then 
used as a source of the next supply needed. The 
whole amount is enough to fill the reservoirs three 
or four times, and I estimate that the material now 
on hand has passed through the closet ten times. So 
far as can be judged by its appearance and smell, 
it is precisely the same as when first prepared for 
use—a dry mixture of earth and ashes, say one part 
of the former and three parts of the latter. It has 
the same apparent effect in the closets that it had 
at the outset. Neither the eye, the nose, nor the 
hand can detect any change from its original con¬ 
dition. The examination in the laboratory has 
been equally powerless to detect any trace of or¬ 
ganic fouling. This is the report: 
Conn. Agricultural Experiment Station, 
Middletown, Nov. 7 th, 1876. 
“ The following is the result of alalysis of closet 
earth, etc. ( Parts in 100.) 
Water..,. 1.31 
Organic and Volatile.10.72 
Phosphoric Acid (P 2 0 G ) . 0.37 
Potash (K 2 O). 0.33 
Nitrogen.0.2S 
Equivalent to Ammonia. 0.34 
(Signed) Ed. H. Jenkins, Chemist.” 
Prof. Vceleker gives the following analysis (so far 
as these elements are concerned) of fresh earth 
prepared by drying and sifting for use in closets: 
Organic and Volatile.. —9.88 
Phosphoric Acid...0.18 
Alkalies and loss in Analysis.1.35 
Nitrogen. -31 
Equivalent to Ammonia.37 
Of course earths vary, and the composition of 
the ashes would modify the composition of my 
mixture, hut, practically, making due allowance 
for such variation, this material, which has nassed 
