Recent Publications in Agricultural Science

Abstract

EVERY civilised State has recognised a special duty towards its farmers in the way of endeavouring to secure them against the purchase of adulterated manures, fraudulent feedimg stuffs, and dead or impure seed, but different countries have taken very various means towards securing the desired end. The United Kingdom, probably because its representative farmers are men of substance, rather holds by the old caveat emptor maxim, and is content with providing the farmer with a machinery for getting an analysis below cost price, but a machinery sufficiently cumbrous to ensure that no one sets it in motion. Other nations, less intent, perhaps, upon a plausible case in Parliament, and more concerned1 in getting the thing itself done, have devised various systems of controlling the trade in such material's, so as to ensure that the smallest farmers shall be supplied with seed or manures reaching a certain standard of purity. The laws and methods adopted for securing such a control in the various States Prof. Giglioli passes in review,1 giving an account of the testing stations, the regulations, the fees, and even-notes on the working details employed in the laboratories. To anyone interested either in the technique or in attempting to secure a more thoroughgoing system in this country, Prof. Giglioli's book will provide a storehouse of information.