A QUESTION OF NAMES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20235, 20 April 1929, Page 20

A QUESTION OF NAMES.

ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. There is an interesting article in the December issue of the Commercial Fertiliser. The president, of the National Fertiliser Association, Mr. E. B- Robins, in his address to the convention, proposed that the name " fertiliser " be supplanted by " plant food." This proposal was favourably received, and was agreed to be a matter worthy of serious consideration and operation. The words " plant food," says the article, aro decidely more descriptive of the materials that the industry sells. They will mean more to the farmer than the words " fertiliser " or " guano," now in common use. The article argues that the first step in educating the farmer to recognise and know fertilisers by their plant-food content is to call them by the name " plant foods." He will then the more easily understand what is meant by nitrogen plant food, phosphorus plant food, potash plant food, and by more complete plant diets. Mr. Robins pointed out that the term " fertilisers " has been so associated in the past with had odours (literally), and with malodorous methods of business, that the use of the term " plant food " might have a beneficial effect in cleansing the atmosphere of the trade. He said that a smell was no longer a qualification of a useful fertiliser material.