SEED IMPROVEMENT MEETING. 239 



work on safe lines. The secretary is, however, convinced that 

 so far as the breeding of seed and its sale for seed purposes is 

 concerned, the direction of such work as that ought to be 

 placed with a permanent committee so that the policy of the 

 association, so far as it relates to such members as engage in 

 the business of breeding and selling seeds of various kinds, 

 WQuld not be liable to change from year to year. There most 

 certainly should be some plan devised whereby the member who 

 desires to engage in the business of breeding and selling seed 

 should register as a seed breeder with the secretary of the 

 association and that his farm operations should be under the 

 supervision of some person appointed by the association so that 

 the association would be in a position to guarantee the seed 

 produced by each member. 



We must not gain the idea that all of the seed grown by the 

 members of this association is fit for seed purposes or that it 

 should receive the endorsement of the association. 



Most of our members would undoubtedly never care to be 

 registered as seed growers. They are interested in the propo- 

 sition of improving the per acre yield of the crops upon their 

 own farms. Perhaps they desire to obtain superior strains of 

 seed but would not care to enter into the growing of seed as 

 a commercial proposition. 



Therefore, the secretary favors an amendment to the consti- 

 tution of the association that will provide for the appointment 

 of a permanent committee, which shall be made up of men who 

 have been trained in the science of seed breeding, and to whom 

 shall be given the entire direction of the seed breeding work of 

 the association. The secretary does not understand that this 

 would preclude the carrying on of demonstration plots, same 

 as has been done during the past year. The directions or the 

 requirements which the seed breeder would be obliged to meet 

 of course, in order to be registered with the association, would 

 necessarily be established by this committee. Such a plan would 

 only be in line with that already adopted by some of the great 

 seed breeding associations and centers. 



Reference to the work done by the Wisconsin Experimental 

 Association, the one from which the form of organization of 

 our own association was copied very largely, reveals the fact that 

 they have had, during the past several years, serious complaints 



