Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-04-06
SEASON FOR SEEDS.
And Also for the Householder to be
on His Guard.

And Also for the Householder to BE
on His Guard.
At this happy season of the year, when
the bulbs that have lain hidden through
the winter under ground, are putting forth
their gorgeous blossoms, enterprising
agents are going about with samples of
seeds and 'prcfusely illustrated catalogues
descriptive of Towering plants and vege-
tables from the land Of Bro5dgnag. The
getting up of these catalogues is quite an
important business. One big establishment
in the north Is entirely devoted 10 printing
Autographs for them. AS for the agents,
they sometimes have tricks that are sharp
and ways that arc vain, so that the rural
or suburban householder will do well to be
on his guard
For example they offer, for twenty-five
or fifty cents, what might be called prize
packages of seeds. These include a num-
her of varieties of flower and vegetable
seeds, being made up on pretty much the
same plan as the packets of postage
stamps for youthful collectors For q
quarter Of a dollar you may get quite an
Observation-Disclosures. turnip, carrot. pea
and bean. with small quantities of sweet
alyssum pansy, sweet pea and may be a
dozen others. Unfortunately, some seeds
men-it is not meant that the practice is
general-work off old stock in this fashion.
The seeds thus purchased are apt to be
stale, SO that they never come up.
One Of the most common frauds of this
kind Is the advertising of old varieties Of
vegetables, etc, as novelties. But a much
more serious and outrageous swindle is the
killing" of seeds, as 1t is technically call
ed. 1t is fact that seeds of many kinds
look much alike. For instance, it is very
difficult even for an expert to distinguish
cabbage seeds from those of the wild mus
tard. Both are dark brown, spherical and
about the same size. The dishonest seeds
man will take a quantity of wild mustard
seeds and subject them to neat until the
vitality Of their germs is destroyed; then
he will mix them with good cabbage seeds.
People buy the stuff in good faith and plant
it; the cabbage seeds come up all right,
while. as matter of course. the dead mus
tard seeds show TO further sign.
1t should be understood that wild mustard
is a very bad and exceedingly common
weed. In California and in other parts of
the west great tracts are covered with 1t.
gathered easily and at small expense. The
killing business is practiced with many
other kinds of seeds, and is difficult of de-
lection.
One result of the recent establishment
of a seed laboratory by the Department Of
seeds given away by Uncle Sam every year
are by no means up to the proper stand
ards. Many of them have been found to
be largely adulterated. For example. a
high-priced grass seed, worth s65 per 100
pounds, proved to have q considerable adj
mixture of another kind of grass seed
valued at only SIG per 100 pounds. Nobody
but an expert could detect the fraud, the
two sorts of seeds being much alike. Here
after satisfactory precautions will be taken
against the purchase by the government OF
adulterated seeds. This can be accomplish
ed very easily, inasmuch as the quality Of
the stuff offered maybe readily determined
by examination in the laboratory.