New York AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 103 
Society of Long Island, which has for years successfully followed 
the plan of codperation. This year its members bought, in the 
form of a mixed fertilizer made according to contract, nitrogen 
for 11.7 cents a pound, available phosphoric acid for 3.6 cents a 
pound and potash as muriate for 3.75 cents a pound. It will be 
noticed that these prices are a little more than one-half those paid 
for plant-food by the average farmer purchasing mixed fertilizers 
in the ordinary way. The members of this club paid $24.45 for 
each ton of fertilizer, which would have cost farmers, buying at 
the average prices paid for plant-food, $44.67. ; 
(4) It is a matter of interest to notice that farmers who pur- 
chase mixtures containing only phosphoric acid and potash are 
compelled to pay even higher prices for each pound of plant-food 
than in complete fertilizers. Thus, each pound of available phos- 
phorie acid costs 7.3 cents and each pound of potash 6.9 cents. 
These goods are often put on the market under fanciful names and 
sold at prices varying from $16 to $30 a ton and averaging nearly 
$21. | 
(5) Manufacturers of fertilizers, whose goods are sold in New 
York State, put out, at least on paper, 1900 different brands. 
Many of these are not on sale in this State, but the number of 
different brands actually in the market of the State is very large. 
These are mixtures made mostly from a few materials, most of 
which are in open market and accessible to farmers. ‘The needs 
of all our different crops could be quite adequately met by less 
than a dozen different mixtures and yet there are in the market 
more than a hundred times this number. In other words, the 
thousand or two brands of commercial fertilizers could be reduced 
to a dozen or less and the needs of the farmers more effectually 
supplied. This absurd multiplicity of brands is in itself a strong 
reason why the farmer should bestow some independent study 
upon. the plant-food requirements of crops and should exercise 
intelligence in purchasing his supplies of plant-food. 
