The Portland daily press., 1869-02-06
DAILY PRESS.
PORTLAND.
Saturday Morning, February 6, 1869.
Commercial Fertilizers.

The Spring time will coon come when the
attention of farmers and gardeners will be
| given to the importan. matter of providing
manures for their fields and gardens. The
manufacturers are now actively engaged in
filling their warehouse with all kinds OF COM
mercial fertilizers such as phosphates, sup
erphosphates, artificial guanos, poucdrettes
and ammoniated mixtures. Barrels and bags
filled with these medicines for sick and ex-
hausted soils will be thrust upon the market
in great numbers and carted over the coun-
try and all will be endorsed with very fiat
tering certificates too easily obtained from
persons high in Office and clothed IN little
brief authority. The newspapers too, will be
filled with advertisements OF the most adcap-
taadum style and so worded as almost to "de-
ceive the elect" Printed handbills will also
be thrown broad cast over the land with glow
ing descriptions of these wanderful fertilizing
agents.
Now in such blaze OF recommendations it
IS no. unlikely that some purchasers may be
dazzled almost to blindness and be led to
make some very Improbable purchases;
hence it is important that our farmers and
gardeners should be upon their guard. 1t is
undoubtedly true that many of these COM
mercial manures have some value and really
contain some of the mineral food which
plants require, and yet there are many others
which are less valuable than the dust in tGe
highways. How to make a proper selection
is the great question.
The Boston Chemical Journal truly says:
THE business of making and vending these
products as conducted in this country is
wholly empirical and wrong. There is no
standard OF value to any article, no formula
by which, as a class they are required to be
compounded, and consequently every man
ufacturer follows his his own caprices or GU
pidity and is entirely irresponsible to custom
or law"
In such condition of affairs it will readily
be seen that the manufacturer has clearly the
advantage over the purchaser and consumer,
for how can the latter detect the fraud?
Surely not until after he has made the pur-
chase and tried the article, and that will take
the best pant of year. And even then the
experiment would by no means be satsfacto.
ry. The truth is, farmer must take these
fertilizers as he does his wife, "for better or
for worse" The Journal above named says:
"a manufacturer can continue the business
of making worthless fertilizers for many years,
and grow immensely rich, and yet escape de-
lection. Indeed, he may gain even a com
Portable reputation by adroit MANAGEMENT in
sending good samples to prominent agrcul-
turists for trial and to chemists for analysis
and widely publishing the favorable results"
Now what can be done 10 protect the pur-
chaser against these monstrous frauds? That
some remedy ought to be sought out is clear
ly manifest We live in an age when adul-
terations abound. The people suffer and the
rascally manufacturers grow rich.
The journal alluded to above has remedy
for preventing frauds in commercial tertiz-
ers. 1t says: "Every package of CONNER
cial fertilizing material offered for sale, should
be inspected by competent chemist and its
exact fertilizing value stamped upon it."
Such remedy would work admirably provid-
ed the chemist were an honest man and
would scorn bribe. 1t the exact amount OF
nitrogenous, phosphate or potash value of
these fertilizers could be ascertained and
stamped by proper authority on each bottle
or bag, people would then know what they
purchase. Such labor would not be expen-
sive, would in some good degree remove all
chances of fraud and greatly benefit the agri-
cultural community. Our legislature now in
session ought TO look into this subject and
devise some remedy in the shape of an enact
ment which shall benefit honest people and
be a terror to evil doers. AGRIcoLA. 3,