Analytical methods of a purely physical nature which are available for the analysis of fertilisers are discussed. These differ radically from the standard chemical methods and can give misleading results under some circumstances. A recent development in automatic analysis is then described which enables the standard methods to be used in some cases. The apparatus—the “Auto- Analyzer”—requires a minimum of operator attention and gives results of an acceptable degree of accuracy; it is particularly suitable for fertilisers because it can be arranged to give results for nitrogen, phosphate and potash simultaneously.