Fertilizer Control

Categories: PURCHASING PLANT-FOOD

The dreams of the patent-medicine vender never

pictured more favoring conditions for his activity than were found by

fertilizer manufacturers and agents before state laws provided for

inspection and control. Men who wanted to do a legitimate business

welcomed protection from the unscrupulous competition that dishonest

men employed. The memory of some of the frauds perpetrated lingers, and

causes a questioning to-day th t is unnecessary. All fertilizer-control

laws afford a good degree of legal protection to the buyer, although in

most states they do not demand a clearness and fullness in statements

of analyses that would be helpful to many, and they fail to require

that sources of plant-food be given. Some fertilizers are sold for more

than they are worth, and some are bought for soils and crops that need

other kinds of plant-food, but this is due to lack of knowledge on the

part of the buyer that he can acquire. The law does its part in the

work of protection better than many buyers do their part. It has driven

fraudulent brands off the market, compelled carefulness in

factory-mixing, and given to the intelligent buyer a knowledge of the

kinds and amounts of plant-food in the bag or ton. The sampling is done

by disinterested men, and the analyses are made by competent chemists.

There need be little distrust of the analysis as printed on the bag,

unless a failure of the manufacturer to keep his goods up to the

standard has been made public in the state's fertilizer bulletin.