The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1900-10-23
PURE SEEDS.
The Necessity for a Seed Law to Protect
Purchasers.

PurchaserS,
Correspondence of The Progressive Farmer.
The latter part of the nineteenth
century has been prominently the
age of a~dulteratiOn and mercantile
fraud. Science. like the Arabian
| Genius of the Lamp, acts powerfully
for good or evil according to the
character which controls it. Science
has placed in the hands of unScru-
puIOus and greedy men powers for
sophistication and fraud which when
used without let or hindrance result
in the wholesale robbery of pur-
chasers. The frauds in the fertilizer
business long ago compelled the legis-
latures of various States to pass
stringent controlling laws. More
recently similar laws in regard to
food stuffs have been found neces-
sary.
For many years farmers and gar
deners have suffered grievOusly from
the fraud and nuisance of poor seeds.
The man who plants only a kitchen
garden and buys annually about fifty
cents worth of seeds does not e
to lose much, even if the whole lot
proves worthless. But to the direct
loss we must add the constructive
and no less real loss of opportunity,
season, labor, and the enjoyment
that may be legitimately derived
from a good crop. The farmer who
wishes to lay down a field to perma-
nent grasses and buys a mixture of
seeds costing from So to so per acre
and who gets instead of a thrifty
sward of particular grasses, a thin
weedy field which will not suppOrta
goat to the acre suffers a nor Seri-
Gus loss and one that he too often
can i'll afford.
The statement, often made, that
the local markets of the Southern
States are made the dumping ground
for stale and weed-infested seed
stocks is only too we'll justified by
the facts found by practical botan-
lists. The writer of this has been
testing the seeds found in the mar
kets of North Carolina for nearly
twelve years. While the latest tests
show some Improvement we the
earliest tests, the general onditiOn
of the market then and now is a dis
grace to the intelligence of tue COM
munity Particularly is this the
case with grasses such as kentucky
Blue, Orchard grass, meadow fescue
and Hungarian bronze.
When seedsmen are taxed with
providing such foul and wretched
samples they usually either deny the
responsibility or say that the market
demands cheap seeds irrespective of
quality and these We're cheep seeds.
But cheupnesS is a relative quality.
It may prove the most expensive sort
of fOOlishneSS.
So long as farmers and gardeners
demand cheap seeds, regardless of
quality, just 50 long will persons be
found to cater to the demand, even
though they are obliged to debase
the quality to make up for the low
price. Very cheap seeds should be
always viewed with suspicion. They
are usually the most expensive
things that the farmer can buy.
Concerning cheap seeds, Dr.. William
Carruthers, Botanist to the Royul
Agricultural Society of England, in
a report to that body, remarks: 1T
is impossible to estimate the injury
that an agriculturist does to himself
when, to save a few shillingS in the
by purchasing inferior seed,
he lnsureS at harvest a crop not only
poor in itself, but abUndantly mixed
with seeds of worthless and nOxiOus
weeds, whose injury to his crops
does not end when they are cut
down with the grain. In buying
foul seed he is acquiring material
which may prove a serious injury to
his crops for years to come"
The farmer who buys such seed
loses not only the present money he
invests in the purchase of seed and
f~etilizers, and in the preparation of
the land, but also the value of the
increase he might reasonably have
expected. But this is not all. The
cost of graduating the weeds whose
seeds he has unwittingly purchased
and sown with the so-called cheap
seeds, and the injury they do to his