The weekly times-record. (Valley City, N.D.) 1912-1922, 1915-04-01
POOR SEED IS
HURTING GROWER
OF DURUN WHEAT

VI DSASSA - A8~A 4
That the growers of macaroni or
durum wheat of this state are injuring
their business through their failure to
carefully select their seed is the con-
tention of the biggest and only ex-
elusive millers of durum in the United
States. ~
Commissioner Flint of the agricul-
tural department, has received let
ter from this firm deploring the extent
to which other wheat is mixed with
the durum, which is shipped in to the
mill city. The following extract from
the letter will probably be interesting
and should inspire all who are inter-
ested in the welfare of the industry to
do what they can for better conditions.
1t says:
1T is strictly in the interests of pure
seed that we address you, and we be-
lieve unless something is done to put
good seed into the ground this year
we are going to have a worse crop to
handle next year than we have had to
contend with this year.
"Since the beginning of this crop we
have had one constant fight to get pure
ldurum wheat. At first we succeeded in
obtaining some fairly pure durum, but
soon after the price Of durum passed
the price of blue stem and other vari-
cites, the cars billed as durum arrived
with a percentage of other than dur
UNI and during the last four months
it has not been at all common to ind
cars containing 20 per cent spring
wheat, and in the 20 per cent we had
mixture of blue stem, fife and even
in some cases, No. 2 hard winter This
tendency to put cheap wheat into the
durum for the purpose of getting a
high price for the cheap wheat, is al
most criminal and is going to react
on the producers of durum wheat, and
worse than all, the innocent will have
to suffer with the guilty, because they
will all be subjected to the same quail
ity of seed and we very much fear that
our next years crop will be a sadly
deteriorated quality of durum unless
most vigorous measures are taken be
fore the wheat is put into the ground
this year.
1--WE believe if you will Immediately
start a campaign toward pure durun
seed you will accomplish great bene
fit to every farmer in your state in
|terested in the production of this
grain, because if he does not have pure
seed his wheat will be mixed and the
price correspondingly reduced. A buy
er of durum, no matter how fine the
quality may be in mixed car, will
not pay within a number of cents a
bushel what he would pay if it were
I'LL uuIu11, VI pei udpo VI =" PooA -
quality. The same is true of buyer
of any other kind of wheat, as in every
instance, the ultimate buyers are the
millers and they know exactly what
they want and if they cannot get it
will not pay as good a price for what
they do not want, no matter how good
each individual kind Of wheat may be
| in the mixture. We, ourselves, are
absolutely refusing to accept on sales
of durum cars which come in here with
large percentage of other wheat, and
other mills which grind durum are in
the same position, and the owner of
the grain finds he is not getting the
price he expected to; discounts rum
ming as much as 10 cents bushel un-
der what he would obtain had his car
contained pure durum.
From this you must recognize the
importance to the farmer Of pure seed
and this in itself, to say nothing of the
growth of industries that can be
brought about if they can obtain pure
durum, is worthy of your earnest and
Immediate attention."