178 • BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



FESTALLY. 



Time will not allow me to speak of the general laws of 

 purchase and sale, or of deceit and warranty, about which so 

 much may be said ; but there are two phases of it of special 

 interest to the farmer. One is the disappointment resulting 

 from the purchase of impure or spurious garden-seeds. It 

 is now well settled, that if a dealer in seeds sells an article 

 marked and put up under a certain name, and it is so billed 

 to the purchaser, this amounts to an absolute warranty or 

 guaranty that the seeds are what they were bought and sold 

 for ; and, if they turn out not to be, the farmer has a remedy 

 against the seller for the money he paid for the seed. And 

 this is so, although the seedsman was honest in the sale, 

 and bought them for exactly what he sold them for ; and he 

 would have a remedy back on the person who sold to him 

 (18 Q. B. 560). But merely to recover back the money j)aid 

 for the seed would fall far short of the loss to the buyer. 

 His time, labor, fertilizers, profits on his crop, are all gone ; 

 and the question has been much agitated, whether the seeds- 

 man is liable for all this loss. And it is now generally 

 understood, that when he either expressly warrants the seed 

 to be of a particular kind or variety, or when he so sells it 

 without any reservation or limitation, and thus creates an 

 implied warranty, he is liable for all the damages directly 

 flowing from the farmer's use of such seed. 



In one instance a market-gardener bought of a seedsman 

 "early strap-leafed, red-top turnip-seed," but which proved 

 to be " Russia late," not salable in market, and only fit for 

 cattle ; and he was allowed to recover of the seller the differ- 

 ence between the value of the crop which was raised and a 

 crop of early turnips on the same soil, even though the 

 seedsman honestly thought the seed was as represented 

 (7 Vroom, 202; 9 Id. 496; 34 N. Y. 634). And in case 

 the farmer is so imposed upon, and the seed proves entirely 

 wortJdess, and his crop of no value, he can make the seeds- 

 man pay not only the cost of the seed, but also for all the 

 labor incurred, and the fair profit he would have had from 

 the crop, had the seed been what it was represented to be 

 (69 N. Y. 62). To avoid this serious liability, seedsmen at 

 the present day very often print upon their seed-packages 



