
26 REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE — 
The tables just presented show that nearly every State using 
commercial fertilizers to any extent, except New York, requires 
either a license to be taken’ out by the manufacturer or seller 
for the sale of commercial fertilizers, or that an analysis fee be 
deposited with the proper official. — 
In the South a tax is levied upon the fertilizer of twenty-five to 
fifty cents per ton, and in Georgia the tax amounts to more than 
$100,000 annually. ‘The analysis fee or license ranges from five 
dollars or more in Maryland to fifty dollars per brand in several 
of the States, while in North Carolina it is $500. 
While these other States give protection to the farmers against 
fraud in commercial fertilizers, and provide for their analysis, 
New York, whose farmers are expending fully $3,000,000 annu- 
ally for commercial fertilizers, are left to provide their own 
protection and take their chances of receiving what they pay for. 
Fortunately for the farmer, the majority of the manufacturers 
of commercial fertilizers are sincere in their efforts to put upon 
the markets goods which shall be all that is claimed for them. 
There are those, however, who by using misleading terms in their 
analyses, terms with which allthe farmers are not familiar, are no 
less guilty of intentional fraud than was the manufacturer of 
Mason’s High Grade fertilizer which was analyzed in 1885 at the 
New York Agricultural Experiment Station and found to contain 
one dollar and fifty-two cents worth of fertilizing ingredients per 
ton, and yet this fertilizer was being sold at thirty dollars per ton 
to the farmers throughout this State. There are other fertilizers 
sold the present season in the State of New York which have fallen 
considerably below the guaranteed analysis. 
The following statistics copied from the United States census 
of 1880 will show the magnitude of this industry in several of the 
States. Only those are included the sales of which aggregate 
over $400,000 annually : 
Cash value of 
commercial 
fertilizers. 
SN PERL SEL IO (6g 02) 8 KR MUNN OI daa A SORT DRS te a a $1, 200,956 
AVOMMECIIOINGS uy late ee ae ma ie I Gi Re ce 497,448 
Delaware ie once aan Ub i Behe aii! ls CATR os ERA 467 , 228 
Ulta a 20k MAL eR OE He EA BEREL OM NLM NOREEN UMAR SPE Sree. yb 4,346,920 
Mint ylands je ctr can UIA i A/a aa 2,838,465 
Massachusetts eo oii eae aa Sia ay a a Mla aE 6538 , 422 
New Jersey cee i Miele nt ie aria at en ea 1,601,609 
INOW EX On ci el Min Be ATL Ie (8 0a id, ae a PR Nate ir 
