New York AaricutturAL ExprerImMent STATION. 101 
to use. ‘The prices thus found enable the farmer to make out his 
own schedule of valuations and they apply accurately to his special 
conditions. | 
Attention is here called to a serious abuse of the schedule of 
valuations published by the Station. In some instances fertilizer 
manufacturers have used in their printed circulars schedule prices 
which had been published some years previous, when the prices 
were considerably higher, and they have quoted these as being 
authorized by the Station. Using these old figures as a basis for 
making a commercial valuation of their goods, they have obtained 
figures which represented their fertilizers as selling for less than 
they were actually worth. Whenever our attention has been 
called to this form of imposition, we have stopped it. It has also 
been reported that some agents use the same means in selling 
goods to farmers, showing one of the Station bulletins and quoting 
its figures. If farmers will keep themselves informed either by 
consulting our latest bulletins or by ascertaining for themselves, 
as suggested above, the latest prices direct from large dealers, 
they need not be the victims of overzealous agents. 
(2) Shall farmers purchase mixed fertilizers or unmixed 
materials? 
It has been represented to farmers that peculiar virtues are 
imparted to the elements of plant-food by proper mixing and that 
this proper mixing can be accomplished only by means not at the 
command of farmers. Such statements are misrepresentations, 
based either upon the ignorance of the person who makes them or 
upon his anxiety to sell mixed goods. Nitrate of soda, for illus- : 
tration, does its work in plant nutrition in exactly the same man- 
ner whether it is added to the soil as part of «4 mixture or whether 
the ingredients of the mixture are applied separately. The avail- 
ability of plant-food is not usually affected by mixing. Other 
conditions determine whether a fertilizer shall be applied in mixed 
form or in separate materials. 
As to the ability of farmers to mix their own fertilizers, no 
doubt exists except in the minds of those who desire to sell goods 
