154 Ga. 487 | Ga. | 1922
This cause is before this court upon petition for certiorari to review the decision of the Court of Appeals therein. Duncan v. Swift & Co., 27 Ga. App. 820 (110 S. E. 21). That decision is as follows: “ A certified copy of the official analysis of a brand of fertilizer registered with the Department of Agriculture is admissible in evidence in any of the courts of this State, -in any case in which the question of the actual ingredients contained in the fertilizer is material. After a brand of fertilizer is registered with the Department of Agriculture, the grade can not be lowered; and it is therefore to be presumed that all fertilizer of that brand, sold after it is thus registered with the commissioner, contains substantially the same ingredients, and a certified copy of an analysis of the brand so registered, made at any
From the above synopsis it will appear that fertilizers are inspected in lots, and samples are taken from the packages composing the different lots inspected. The samples drawn from -the packages composing each lot are thoroughly mixed, and from the resulting mixture the inspector, by the method known as “ quartering," draws two subsamples which he puts in two bottles, and on the label of each he writes the number of the sample. On the label of one of the bottles the inspector writes the name of the fertilizer, acid phosphate, or other fertilizer ingredient, and the name of the manufacturer. He then seals both bottles, and forwards them to the commissioner of agriculture, stating the number of sacks from which the sample was taken, and giving on a prescribed form a full report of the inspection, which must be numbered to correspond with the number of the bottle, and in which are given the name of the fertilizer, the name of the manufacturer, the place where inspected, the date of the inspection, and the name of the inspector. Thus is kept a complete history of each lot of fertilizer 'which is inspected in this State. Then a sample of all fertilizers or fertilizer material drawn by the official inspectors, and filed with the commissioner of agriculture, is marked by number, and delivered by the commissioner of agriculture to the State chemist, who shall make a complete analysis of the same, and certify, under the same number as marked, to the commissioner of agriculture, which analysis shall be recorded as official, and entered opposite the brand of fertilizer or fertilizer material which the mark and number represent. The sample which the State chemist analyzes is not each separate subsample which the inspector lodges with the commissioner of agriculture, but “ a sample of all fertilizers or fertilizer material drawn by the official inspectors and filed " with the commissioner. It is a composite sample. The State chemist makes a complete analysis of this composite sample, which is recorded as the official •analysis, and entered opposite the brand of fertilizers or fertilizer material which the sample represents. This is the official analysis
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.