As Senator Hawkins has indicated, the fact that this Bill merely seeks to remedy some defects in the original Act and to give permanence to very necessary emergency powers regulations ensures that it will not be opposed. It is essential, however, to consider a few aspects of this very important question. Senator Stanford has referred to one. There are, however, two matters of very great importance which are covered by this particular Bill, that is to say, fertilisers and feeding stuffs. Both relate to the raw materials of the agricultural industry. Agriculture might in one way be compared with industry. It might be an over simplification to say that there are two main processes in agriculture—the manufacture of our soil or a portion of it into vegetable matter, and the manufacture of vegetable matter into animal products. These are the main activities of the agricultural community. In the first place they take the raw material, which is the land of Ireland, and seek by their labour and efforts to convert it first into vegetation and then in another process they seek to convert vegetation produced here and also that imported from abroad into animal products. In this Bill we are seeking to regulate and improve the raw materials applied in the production of crops, that is artificial fertilisers, and we are also seeking to regulate and control the raw material for the production of animal produce, that is, feeding stuffs.
Looking at it from this aspect it will be seen that the Bill has a very important impact on the agricultural industry. If the farmer allows himself to be cheated or defrauded in any way in the fertilisers which he accepts for his land or in the feeding stuffs he purchases for his live stock his efficiency is thereby very seriously decreased. Any legislation which aims at safeguarding the farmer in respect of purchased fertilisers or purchased feeding stuffs is therefore of immense importance to both the farmer and the country. It is not so easy as it looks to distinguish between an inferior feeding stuff and one that is of real value, or to find out the defects which may exist in the feeding stuff.
It is equally difficult for the ordinary farmer to be sure that a fertiliser, particularly a compound fertiliser, is of the quality it purports to be. There was in the original Act—I assume it is being continued—provision for a written guarantee with the sale of fertiliser and feeding stuffs but as far as I know very few farmers have either asked for or are being supplied with such a written guarantee. There is on the sacks or containers of both feeding stuffs and fertilisers certain very limited and very vague information in regard to the contents.
Let me say that I have for a considerable time been influenced by the view that there is a lot to be said against compound fertilisers and against compound feeding stuffs. A compound fertiliser or a compound feeding stuff is like a coalition or a composite Government. It affords very great scope or cover for dishonesty and deception. For example, it is very easy in regard to a straight forward product such as barley meal, oatmeal or any other meal derived from one cereal for the purchaser to know whether it is good or bad by simply opening the sack. By the appearance, smell and taste, if you like, you will know if it is inferior. But if that barley meal, maize, or whatever it may be, is blended with meat meal or, perhaps, worse still, with fish meal a red herring is drawn across the trail and it is very, very difficult for the ordinary purchaser to know whether there is some inferior ingredient in the compound.
It would, therefore, be much better if, as a result of the superior and increasing agricultural advisory services which we have at the present time, farmers were all sufficiently well informed as to be able to balance their rations of feeding stuffs and blend their own compound fertilisers. I think it would be much better for the agricultural industry as a whole.
I am suggesting in a way that it might be a good thing if, through this Bill, the Minister and his Department were to lend their influence and weight in favour of selling feeding stuffs and fertilisers in their simple form. It will be remembered that in regard to fertilisers practically every farm differs in the make-up of its soil. It will be remembered that nearly every field on each farm differs in regard to the make-up of its soil. A compound fertiliser, which might have some general merit, will not be the best for each particular field or for each particular farm.
The prejudice in favour of the compound is that it contains a number of ingredients and that if there is something lacking in the soil it will be provided but against that there may be a certain surplus of one particular mineral in the soil and by applying a compound you may be merely adding to the surplus. Accordingly, the application of that compound is uneconomic.
The position in most counties at the moment is that there is one agricultural adviser to 800, 900 or 1,000 farmers. It is possible for these agricultural advisers to reach almost every farm in their areas at frequent intervals and to discuss with them the problems of soil fertility. We have an efficient soil analysis service which enables the farmer to ascertain in what particular respect his soil is deficient. I think it would be far better if, with the aid of the local agricultural adviser, the farmer, having tested his soil, were to apply the particular fertiliser in the exact proportions in which it is required on each field, rather than adopt the rather lazy method of using a compound which by nature of its all-embracing contents will meet any possible deficiency in the soil.
I would like to make a case on this Bill against compound fertilisers and compound feeding stuffs. In regard to feeding stuffs, a substantial case can be made against compound mixtures. It is this: The man who feeds live stock is usually, if not almost invariably, the owner of the land. It is highly desirable that the farmer should use the produce of his land as far as possible in the feeding of live stock. If you purchase a completely balanced ration, it is rather difficult to add anything to it. For example, if a ration for pigs is completely balanced the adding to it of home grown barley or home-grown potatoes would unbalance it. It would be much better, I think, if the farmer were to purchase whatever feeding stuffs he requires unmixed and in the simple form. There, again, with the help of the agricultural adviser he would discover the exact proportions in which to blend these feeding stuffs with his own home-produced foodstuffs.
There is also the more important point that it is much easier to discover the deficiencies or faults in a straight simple cereal meal than it is in a compound. These are considerations which I think should make us inclined to ensure, as far as possible through this Bill, that the purchase by farmers of compound fertilisers and feeding stuffs is discouraged, and that the farmer is given every incentive to use his own intelligence, and he has plenty of it, in the mixing and blending of fertilisers and of the feeding stuffs that are best adapted to his own particular needs.
There is one other matter which I think arises in regard to this Bill. It is, if you like, a very simple and practical matter. Is there not power in the Bill to enable the Minister to compel the manufacturers of fertilisers to sell them in a form that is easily used by the farmer? Fertilisers are sold at the present time in a two cwt. sack to a great extent. We all know what it means to lift a two cwt. sack, and these sacks require to be lifted at frequent intervals on the farm to be loaded on trailers or on carts or, perhaps, if they are being blended with other mixtures, to be emptied out and refilled.
I do not know how this idea of packing fertilisers in two cwt. sacks originated. It seems to have originated, not in the minds of farmers but probably in the minds of the gentlemen in the offices which control the manufacture of these commodities. If these people had to lift these sacks they would probably see to it that they were packed in one cwt. sacks. I want to suggest that, through this Bill, the Minister should see that all fertilisers offered for sale are made up in sacks or bags weighing not more than one cwt.
I think that it might even be desirable to ensure that they should be made up in paper bags rather than in jute sacks. We have been how convenient for builders the present method is of packing cement in paper bags. I am not making this suggestion on behalf of farmers only. I have in mind the manual workers in the country, in our factories and in transport as well as our agricultural workers on the farms. Why should these men be treated as if they were beasts of burden? I suggest that one cwt. of any packed commodity is quite sufficient for anyone to lift, and that it is utterly inefficient and a waste of time to have fertilisers packed in larger sacks.
The same, of course, applies to grain. We have at the present time a barrel of wheat which weighs 20 stone and a barrel of potatoes which weighs 24 stone. Now, there may have been men of great physical strength in this country in years gone by, but I rather suspect that these measures were conceived by people who had no interest whatever in the ordinary manual worker. I think it is time that an attempt were made to see the viewpoint of the manual worker, and I think that this House should be vigilant in that respect.
There is also another point in regard to which there is a great waste of fertiliser, a great waste of time and a great deal of inconvenience caused, and that is by the sale of fertiliser in powdered form. It should be compulsory on manufacturers to offer their fertilisers for sale, whether they be phosphates, potassic manures or nitrogenous manures, in a form so that they can be mixed with more fertilisers and be sown by mechanical means. We all know how the manure distributor will clog up when endeavouring to distribute powdered manures.
In regard to the regulation which compels the manufacturer or seller of those feeding stuffs and fertilisers to give a guarantee in regard to their analysis, I think that guarantee should be in the simplest form, and that, wherever possible, non-technical terms should be used. I think the Minister indicated in the Dáil that he was sympathetic to that viewpoint. It is of course, essential in regard to feeding stuffs that not only should that simple form be used, but that there should be a guarantee for the quality of the particular ingredient used. For example, it is not sufficient to say that a certain compound contains 20 or 40 per cent. of oats; there should also be some indication as to the quality of that particular grain. There is such a thing as oats and oats. You can have oats of a quality that is almost useless for feeding stuffs, or you can have oats of first-class quality.
In regard to oats offered for sale on the market, the quality is ascertained by a number of tests, one of which is bushel weight, but where oats, barley or maize are used in a compound, I think there should be some guarantee given as to the quality. There is also, as we all know, the question of whether it is whole grain or not. The offals of oats when put through a hammer mill, particularly if they are blended with meat meal or fish meal or some other ingredient in a compound feeding stuff, may have the appearance of good quality meal, even though they are altogether inferior. I think it is to safeguard us against those deceptions that this Bill is intended. I therefore commend it and would ask the Minister to give some attention to the suggestions which have been made by me as well as to those made in the discussion of the Bill in Dáil Eireann. It is a simple measure, but it is nevertheless an important one from the agricultural and national point of view. It is one in which we would all like, as far as possible, to co-operate with the Minister and with the Department in making it as effective as possible.