Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1876-11-23
ADVERTISING RATES
Scientific AgricuIfure. A

me repOft on commercial fertilizers
by Professor p. Collier, member of the
Scientific Commission of the United
States TO the international Exhibition
at Vienna in 1873, has appeared, in the
form of a pamphlet of sixty-seyen
pages, and is replete with interesting
matter. 1t gives large number Of
statiStics concerning the trade in fertil-
izers IN Europe and America, their
sources. character. Value, and cost.
The report of Professor Collier coin
cides fully with the com mon experience
10 Europe and in this country in Ubw-
ing that there is great deal of fraud in
commercial fertilizers; that at the same
time the bulk of what is in the market
is good; AM that the only method to
prevent frasds, enable the farmer tn
make sure of getting reliable wares.
and at the same time to improve the
general quality of the wares sold, rests
In control systems based on chemical
analysis.
The fertilizer control system intro
duced In Connecticut by the State Ex.
pertinent Station is working very salts
iactorily. A considerable number of
low-grade and fraudulent fertilizers
have been exaIniDed, and their cbarac-
ter exposed. One article, for instance
which had been sold Tor $50 per tom a
discount from the regular price of $50
per ton being made to "intr ,duce the
proved to be nearly one-half
sand, and to have commercial value
of about s. per ton. Several parties
who had bought and tried the article.
on learning the result of the analysis.
refused payment, considerable sum of
money being thus saved to the victims
OF the fraud. Arrangements are made
responsible dealers sell their
goods under supervision of the station.
guaranteeing their composition, and
holding them at all times subject to ex-
by the station. Purchasers
have also the privilege of having the
fertilizers they buy analyzed al the
station at small cost or for nothing.
The important question as to the
form of nitrogen most suitable for the
nutrition of plants has been studied by
Labmann, who has lately experiment
ed with buck wheat, maize, and tobacco,
supplying nitrogen in some cases in
the form of nitrates, and in others in
the form of ammonia salts. He con-
,ludeS that some plants require am.
lion, and nitric acid in the second, but
hat ammonia may, by oxidation in
The sell, produce the nitric acid needed.
OF the many new ways in which
'ciepce has of late come to be applied
20 agricultural, one of the most inter-
,sting as well as most useful is in the
Investigation of seeds. In 1869 DIR,
Noble, director of the agricultural ex-
pertinent station at Tharand, in Sax
my, commenced the study of seeds in
common use in Germany, and founded
he first "seed-eOnrrOl station" How
much of good has come from this may
De inferred from the fact that during
he seven years that have since elapsed
,ver 1000 samples of seeds have been
at Tharand; that -adultera-
ions have been discovered, most in
,eniOus in character, harmful in effect,
md remarkable in amount, so much so
Is to work by no means inconsider-
lble injury to the agriculture of the
country; and that some twenty seed
control stations have been established
n Germany, while others have been
'ither founded or projected in Dem
mark, Austria, Hungary, Holland,
Belgium, and Italy. Among the adul-
eratiOns found are old seeds that have
ost their power of terminating, seeds
y either useless or noxious plants,
killed and sometimes fresh.
md even pieces of quartz rock, ground.
lift I'd, and cOlOred TO initiate genuine
eeds.-l Eslitor's Scientific Record, in
1arper's Magazine for December.