FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
129 
The leaf of the plant is its laboratory 
where food is prepared for the support of 
the parts of the plant. But when the 
leaf has grown old and the purpose of its 
existence has been performed, it gives 
up its life and substance to 1 perfect tffe 
parts of the plant and 1 finally to the per¬ 
fection of the seed whereby the plant 
may perpetuate itself. 
It is known that plants do not have the 
same chemical composition at different 
stages of growth and it is due to the dis¬ 
covery of this scientific principle that we 
have been taught some highly important 
lessons as to the times and seasons at 
which crops may best be harvested. 
There is yet much work to 1 be done in 
adding to our present knowledge of the 
special functions of different plant food 
constituents and no field of research offers 
better opportunity to our scientists than 
investigations of this character. 
THE STATE CHEMIST'S AID TO THE FARMER. 
By B. H. Bridges. 
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
Having been placed on the committee 
to report on Fertilizers, and being fa¬ 
miliar with the control of the state’s 
supply, I have decided to devote my pa¬ 
per to the discussion of the fertilizer 
trade, paying special attention to the past 
year. 
At the outset, I may say that the fer¬ 
tilizer found upon the market during the 
past year has fully met, and on the aver¬ 
age been above, the standard represented 
by the analysis on the tags. It is my be¬ 
lief that no manufacturer of a commo¬ 
dity in this country is so careful as to 
the quality of his goods as is the manu¬ 
facturer of fertilizers. 
In this day when the spirit of com¬ 
mercialism has permeated every endeav¬ 
or we may justly ask the question if it is 
business for the manufacturer of fertil¬ 
izer to try to defraud the consumer of 
fertilizer. Those who are not intimately 
acquainted with the facts might say that 
any manufacturer will defraud the con¬ 
sumer when he can. I do not believe this 
to be so for the reason that it is not to 
the best interest of the manufacturer to 
practice fraud. And the reasons why it 
is not to the best interest of the manu¬ 
facturer to defraud the consumer is be¬ 
cause there is a true co-partnership rela¬ 
tion between the consumer and the man¬ 
ufacturer; and second, because of the en¬ 
forcement of the fertilizer law by the 
state authorities and the exercise of the 
privilege of the special sample by the citi¬ 
zens under the law. 
It is an unquestioned fact that a ma¬ 
jority of the fertilizer sold, is sold on 
time, i. e., the manufacturer receives his 
pay for the fertilizer when the consumer 
has received payment for his crop. Now 
if the manufacturer sells his customer a 
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