ANALYSES OF MANURES.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 535, 16 June 1909, Page 10

ANALYSES OF MANURES.

PUBLICITY WITHOUT KISIC. It is frequently demanded by New Zealand fanners that a law shall be passed enabling the Agricultural Department to publish analyses of manures without risk of law actions. It is held that this publicity, 'combined with the name of tho firms selling the manures/ would be the best safeguard to the farmers that manures offered' are' up to specifications.' It is contended that the best manure firms would favour tho proposal as calculated to protect them from the effect of the malpractices of unscrupulous dealers. But the proposal has not yet been carried out in New Zealand. In England,, however, tho Government publishes periodically an extensive list of analyses made, with tho names of the firms and vendors; and in Tasmania:a,lso asimilar.system is in H'c^ue.i.'nie'Tafimaiiiaiilistpublishes not only the vendor's name, the guaranteed analysis,.and' tho actual official analysis, for comparison,., but states also in prominent columns tho selling price alongside of the actual value put upon the manure by tho. analyst. This method appears to hem in tho poor manure merchant completely and perhaps in tho case of "special it hits him too .hard. For while the analyst states tho valuo (on a "unit" basis) of the fertilising ingredients, he will, of course, allow nothing extra for tho skill required to wrap up in these special manures the very ingredients which a special crop requires. Usually in tho.Tasmanian lists the analyst finds tho manures richer than they are/guaranteed to.be. But his idcas.of value more often are below those of: tho dealer.