160 Report oF THE DIRECTOR OF THE 
tionable, but what prominent manufacturer is willing to acknowl- 
edge that he uses either of the above as an ingredient of one or 
another of the several brands of fertilizers he may be placing 
upon the market? It was but recently that a farmer handed me 
a fragment of a roasted hoof, which in its present condition had 
by chance got into the fertilizer which he had bought. With 
this evidence who can doubt but that the nitrogen present in this 
particular fertilizer was supplied whojly or in part from this 
material, the agricultural value of which is, with our present 
knowledge, so uncertain, who can doubt that while the above 
enumerated and probably worthless materials can be found so 
abundantly in our markets, that there is a large though secret 
demand for them, and that this demand comes from some of the 
manufacturers of commercial fertilizers. 
The law of this State does not forbid the use of leather or any- 
thing else by the manufacturers, but in the case of “roasted 
leather or any other form of inert nitrogenous matter,” it shall 
be the duty of the manufacturer or dealer to state the fact in 
legible print on the package in which the fertilizers are exposed 
or offered for sale. (See section 4 of the Fertilizer Law.) Such 
fact, so far as I know, has not been stated upon any brand of 
fertilizer offered for sale in this State. 
Certain manufacturers appear unwilling to state their formulas 
for compounding their several products, as though there was 
some great secret hidden beneath, revealing which would seri- 
ously injure their trade. Now and then we hear in discussion 
about the wonderful virtue of “well-balanced formulas, etc., 
tc.,” the absurdity of which claim can be easily established by 
a few illustrations taken from the fertilizers analyzed and 
reported in this report. 
Among the 235 samples analyzed 41 were of brands mentioned 
as potato manures. The average selling price of these 41 
potato manures was $35.34 per ton. On the theory that there 
was something in this well balanced formula talk, we might rea- 
sonably expect to find approximate agreement among these 41 
brands, while as a matter of fact we do find that they are sub- 
ject to widest variation, agreeing in nothing except that in the 
opinion of all the manufacturers a potato manure should contain 
all three of the leading fertilizing constituents, viz.: Phosphoric 
acid, potash and nitrogen. 
: 
2 
‘ 
4 
g 
. 
4 

