Reference is made to the fertilizers offered for sale by The Chemical Compound Fertilizer Co., otherwise Mason, Chapin & Co., Providence, R. I.

From the published reports of this company and from the testimony of correspondents, concerning the price asked and the claims made by their agents, etc., we learn:

1st. The compounding of the fertilizers is a secret process. "The exact method in which this is accomplished is a secret of great value to us and which we do not propose to give away to the public." 2nd. The phosphoric acid is classed as "soluble in the soil," which to the chemist is an indefinite and suspicious form of statement. 3rd. No statements are made as to whether the fertilizers contain potash or not. They are advertised as containing certain percentages of “alkali,” which may be interpreted as either potash or soda.

4th. Written testimony shows that the agent offering these fertilizers claims that 600 pounds of the form for potatoes would be found equal to a ton of the ordinary superphosphates.

5th. The fertilizers have been offered at the remarkable price of $55 per ton.

Fortunately for the farmers such new materials as the above are, in these days, very soon brought to the test of a severe investigation. Samples of these particular fertilizers have been examined at the Connecticut and Maine Experiment Stations, and the results of the analyses make these peculiar claims appear rather grotesque, and the price highly exorbitant. The following are the analyses:

An examination at the Connecticut Experiment Station still more exhaustive makes it evident that the fertilizers are made up by mixing nitrate of soda, some crude, ground phosphate and probably soda ash.

The comments by the Connecticut Experiment Station on these goods and on the lately much discussed value of soda as a substitute for potash, are so entirely clear and sound that they are reproduced here.

"A mixture of 500 pounds of nitrate of soda, costing $12.50, 1200 pounds of basic slag costing $11.40 and 300 pounds of dry carbonate of soda, costing $6.00, total cost $29.90, would contain approximately the same quantities of nitrogen, phosphoric acid and soda and would have at least as great a crop-producing power as these fertilizers costing $50.00 per ton ($55.00 in Maine.)

The only valuable fertilizing ingredients contained in these fertilizers, viz:, phosphoric acid could, however, be bought for not far from $20.00, so that the plant food in these goods costs more than twice as much as the farmer needs to pay for it.

It is claimed that the soda existing in these fertilizers as carbonate and nitrate is an efficient substitute for potash in the plant and in the soil. So far as the plant is concerned a large amount of the most refined investigation would appear to demonstrate conclusively that soda cannot in any sense or to any extent take the place of potash in plant-nutrition. Plants growing in presence of abundance of potash usually take up and contain more potash than they really need. This accidental or unnecessary potash may indeed be replaced by soda, but both may be withheld without detriment to the plant. Even the salt-worts and seaweed which usually grow in soils or water containing much sodium compounds, flourish equally as well in absence of soda,but cannot exist in default of potash.

On the other hand, soda may sometimes or often take the place of potash as a fertilizer. In such cases it operates indirectly, not by entering itself into the crop as a needful food to the plants, but by its action on the soil, making more rapidly available some other ingredient of the soil, it may be potash, or lime or nitrogen, which is there present, but exists in a comparatively inert state. It is well established that the use of soda as a fertilizer has often increased crops, but experience shows that it is commonly an uncertain and unsafe application to land. In any case it does not enrich the soil or increase its stores of plant food, but simply facilitates their solution, consumption, and it may easily be, their waste.

As a rule soils contain more soda than potash and the frequent use of soda in fertilizers tends to exhaust and impoverish the land. If soda is to be used it is most cheaply supplied in nitrate of soda, which by its nitrogen may easily return its entire cost, leaving its soda in the soil as carbonate, and if more alkali is useful, lime is vastly cheaper than soda and not a whit less efficacious, is in fact, what soda is not, an essential element of plantnutrition, as well as the safest and surest means of fluxing the

inert plant-food of the soil and putting its hoarded capital into active circulation."

Bulletin 20 will continue this discussion in the consideration of a certain class of cattle foods.

MAINE STATE COLLEGE,

ORONO, ME., MARCH 15th, 1895.

W. H. JORDAN.

BULLETIN No. 20.

A DISCUSSION OF CERTAIN COMMERCIAL ARTICLES.

(2) FOODS.

A class of materials commonly spoken of as "Condimental" or "patent" foods, has been found in our markets for many years. Now and then a new one appears, as has lately been the case in Maine. These foods are generally given some pretentious name such as "Condimental Cattle Food," "Imperial Egg Food," "Nutriotone," etc. They usually possess an aromatic or other positive odor, which to the uninitiated gives the appearance of value.

The claims that are made for the nutrient and tonic properties of these commodities are fairly startling as lying outside the range of either common experience or scientific knowledge, and on the strength of such claims these wonderful mixtures are sold in most cases at prices ranging from $100 to $2,000 per ton. How utterly absurd both the claims and the prices appear in the light of facts! Repeated careful examinations of these materials show that without exception they consist principally of common cattle foods, or other common materials, mi.red with small percentages of the cheapest and most ordinary medicinal substances.

The following are the results of a number of examinations made by various experiment stations:

From Rep. Conn. Expt. Sta., 1878, p. 125.

"Condimental Cattle Food," cost $8.00 per 100 pounds. "It consists chiefly of corn meal and bran. It contains enough fenugreek to give it a strong flavor of that aromatic seed and likewise some seeds like caraway in appearance

From Rep. Maine Exp. Sta., 1885, p. 52.

"Imperial Egg Food." Cost 50 cents per pound. Chiefly clam and oyster shells with some bone, also some pepper.

Johnson's Continental Food. Cost 75 cents for 10 pounds. "A mechanical examination shows that the food is undoubtedly wheat bran with possibly some middlings." Contains "some fenugreek" and "a little sulphur."

"English Patent Food." Cost $1.00 for a bag of 12 pounds. "Appears to be made up of middlings and corn meal, largely middlings. .." Contains "some fenugreek."

From Bulletin No. 20. Mass. Expt. Sta., p. 6.

"The Concentrated Feed." Cost $8.00 per 100 pounds. ". . . A mixture of several ingredients, among them was noticeable common salt."

From Rep. Conn. Expt. Sta. 1888, p. 146.

"The Concentrated Feed for Horses, Cattle, Sheep, Swine, Poultry, etc." "Apparently consists of a mixture of wheat and corn with thirteen per cent. of salt and perhaps a little of some centrated food." "Costs $100 per ton in three ton lots, . . . . $160 per ton in small quantities."

"The Concentrated Egg equivalent to $660 per ton. more concentrated food."

more con

Producer." Cost $4.00 for 12 pounds,
Contains both corn and wheat and some

From Bulletin 15, N. H. Expt. Sta.

"Pratt's Food." Cost 75 cents for 12 pounds or $6.00 per 100 pounds. The food appears to be wheat middlings to which has been added some fenugreek and common salt."

"Weston's Condition Powder." Cost 50 cents for package of three pounds. "It resembled a mixture of corn meal and cotton seed meal and it had a saline taste and strong odor of fenugreek.”

"Climax Food." Cost $1.00 per 12 pounds or $8.00 per 100 pounds. "It resembled a mixture of fine wheat middlings and wheat screenings together with a small quantity of caraway or fenugreek seeds and small bits of a substance like butter-nut or elm bark," also common salt 9.77 per cent., Glauber's salt, 4.50 per cent., and Chili Saltpeter 3.84 per cent.

From Rep. Maine Exp. Sta., 1892, p. 26.

"Pratt's Food." Cost $120 per ton. "Has the appearance of being chiefly ground bran or shorts. Contains a small amount fenugreek." "Contains something less than three per cent. of common salt."

From Rep. Conn. Expt. Sta. 1893, p. 244.

"Nutriotone." "It contains a considerable quantity of some leguminous seed, some linseed meal and perhaps other feeding stuffs together with aromatic substances (fenugreek, anise seed, caraway and the like,) and over ten per cent. of salt."

"Silver Live Stock Powder." Cost $1.00 per pound. "Consists essentially of ground bone having a dark color and slight odor of coal tar."

From Crop Bulletin No. 6, 1894, Me. Board of Agr.

cases

"Nutriotone." Cost 25 cents per pound. (Sold in some for $7.00 for 50 pounds.) "Consisted largely of linseed meal with a litle fenugreek and apparently some pea or bean meal. It contained 18.67 per cent. ash, a large part of which was common salt." The following are some of the statements that have been made by men who are students of animal nutrition, in regard to condimental cattle foods in general.

"Mr. Lawes of Rothamstead, England, made a most thorough, practical trial on the use of condiments in feeding, and demonstrated that there is no profit in it."-Rep. Conn. Expt. Sta.. 1878, p. 125.

"The foods have no greater nutritive value than wheat bran, middlings and corn meal from which they are made, while the small quantities of fenugreek and sulphur are utterly valueless to a well animal, and a poor reliance as a means of curing a sick one."-Rep. Maine Expt. Sta., 1885, p. 53.

"The practice of buying compound feeding stuffs in the general market, without a sufficient actual knowledge regarding the kind or the character of its various ingredients, ought to be decidedly discouraged; for the farmer who pursues that course, leaves his best interest to mere chance."-Mass. Expt. Sta., Bul. 20, p. 7.

"It has been abundantly proven that condimental foods have no advantage over others by reason of the condiments in them. As medicines they may well be distrusted in view of the absurd claims made by the seller."-Rep. Conn. Expt. Sta., 1888, p. 148.

"Quack horse doctors and Concentrated Cattle food manufacturers are twins, and they flourish, not on the ignorance of farmers, but on that lingering remnant of old times, which made saltpeter and sulphur the universal cure-all for horses and cattle. The

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foods reported below are worth only from $20 to $25, per ton. So far as the medicinal claim is concerned, even the treatment of a 'Quack' is better, and certainly cheaper, than the wholesale use of mixtures of unknown composition.”--Bul. 15, N. H. Expt. Sta., p. 3.

FACTS TO BE REMEMBERED.

(1) The mixture of ingredients contained in the ordinary foods comprises all that are known either to practice or science as useful to animal life.

(2) The ordinary cattle foods supply animal nutrition in the most useful and economical forms.

(3) Condimental foods are absurd as medicines. If an animal is well no medicine is needed, if ill, remedies adapted to the case should be administered.