98 MAINE STATE SOCIETY. 



tered, though one was found in the hall ; but it was of very inferior 

 quality. Of buckwheat, and garden seeds, none were entered or 

 exhibited. ' 



The Committee cannot but hope, that in the future, more pains 

 will be taken to fill up the department of grains and seeds, by the 

 farmers of the State, than has been done, the present year in par- 

 ticular. Wheat and corn were the only cereals that had respectable 

 representations, so far at least as numbers of specimens were con- 

 cerned. 



In justice to the competitors on wheat, perhaps the Committee 

 ought to say, that it was no easy matter to make up a judgment, as 

 to which of two specimens were best, the one entered as Java wheat, 

 and the other as Jordan, which is only a local name. The Jordan 

 wheat was accompanied with a sheaf, which was as handsome and 

 well -grown as could be desired^ and of the variety known ^^ flint 

 wheat. What is its 'true name, we are not fully prepared to deter- 

 mine. It was, however, very handsome, but not quite equal, in all 

 respects, to the Java, in the Committee's judgment. 



The Committee wish, most respectfully to suggest to our farmers, 

 that it is very desirable that an end should come very speedily to the 

 practice of giving local names to farm productl^ the true names of 

 which may not be known. This practice is a fruitful source of con- 

 fusion, and is productive of no good. Names are of no use except 

 as they are uniform and significant. With the present and con- 

 stantly increasing multiplicity of local names, nothing can be deter- 

 mined by the names they bear as to the characteristics of the product. 

 In one place they mean one thing and in another quite a different 

 thing. Old and familiar things as often turn up under new names, 

 as things really new. This has come to be a serious evi'l in our 

 agriculture. 



The Committee would say, that the only proper course to bo pur- 

 sued by any one, when he gets any variety of seed which he docs 

 not absolutely know to be new, that has no name known to him, is 

 to use every means to find out its true name. He should note all 

 its peculiarities of form, habits of growth, and record all the facts 

 he can collect with reference to its history, and submit the whole to 

 gome person or persons skilled in such matters, and wait their de- 



