DAIRY, SEED IMPROVEMENT, STOCK BREEDERS' MEETINGS. 317 



culture is the oldest ■of all professions and businesses as yet in 

 these great and glorious United States, practically no atten- 

 tion has heen paid to the standardization of seeds. Seeds of 

 all descriptions have heen taken haphazard from the corn bin, 

 the grain elevator, the potato cellar, or the bag. Only here and 

 there spasmodic attempts have been made to prevent cross fer- 

 tilization of varieties and but half-hearted attempts are made 

 at rogueing crops grown for seed puiposes only. Few farmers 

 there are in the United States who have ever seen any of their 

 crops reach maturity, absolutely uniform in variety. 



Legions there are who suffer big losses annually, because 

 they fail to secure a particular variety of seeds they have or- 

 dered and for which they have paid'. Close observation for 

 the past seventeen years has demonstrated most forcibly the 

 fact that seldom less than twenty per cent and sometimes as 

 high as eighty per cent of many crops are lost to the farmer, 

 because absolutely dead or extremely weak, imperfectly ma- 

 tured seeds have been furnished. In practically all other 

 businesses, manufacturing or mercantile, the buyer of any mar 

 terial specifies, as does the farmer, exactly what he wants. He 

 is given a price which he pays, and having carried out his part 

 of the contract, demands and secures a particular item he 

 specifies. If he finds the goods delivered differ in length, in 

 breadth, or in thickness, in size, in shape, in color, in weight, 

 or in strength, he demands a return of his money or, if he has 

 not already paid, he refuses to pay and he further makes claim 

 and secures damages to cover the time lost, the injury done 

 his business and his reputation, whereas the farmer buys his 

 raw material — ^the seed — ^by the pig-in-the-poke method. In 

 the majority of cases, only finding out after his crop is ma- 

 tured what variety or mixture of varieties he purchased in the 

 spring, and only the easy going, long sufifering, unorganized 

 farming profession would stand for what those who sell seeds 

 call their non-warranty clause, which is the most remarkable 

 acknowledgment that all who use it lack either the necessan' 

 knowledge to warrant them in selling seeds or that they lack 

 either the ability or willingness to follow the common practice 

 of all other kinds of business. 



In any other line of business, than that of seed selling, a 

 concern which would state year after year that it would not 



