788 



HORTICULTUPI- 



December 14, 1907 



Seed Trade 



The season is now at hand when the 

 growers ot peas and beans will begin 

 booking orders tor future delivery for 

 the season of 190S-9, and the prices 

 at which the various varieties can be 

 profltably produced is causing the 

 careful responsible grower much 

 thought and anxiety. He has no idea 

 what his competitors' prices are going 

 to be, yet he knows he cannot con- 

 tinue doing business at old prices. For 

 one reason his products are going to 

 cost him more, and though he knows 

 that certain camp followers are going 

 to solicit business at old-time prices, 

 trusting to their lower rates to atone 

 for the notoriously low quality of their 

 goods, yet he is compelled to raise his 

 prices or allow his standard ot quality 

 to drop to the level of the jackals of 

 the trade. This by instinct and long 

 practice he cannot do, and must there- 

 fore trust that a sufficient number of 

 his customers, knowing Ihey will get 

 the best goods attainable, will appreci- 

 ate his circumstances, and that his ad- 

 vance in prices is justifiable to enable 

 him to continue in business. 



It has been pointed out at various 

 times in these columns that the 

 standard by which prices have in the 

 past been regulated no longer repre- 

 sents actual conditions. The five- 

 fold yield which was many years ago 

 adopted as the standard for most va- 

 rieties of garden peas, does not meet 

 present-day circumstances. The hardy 

 varieties in use at the time this stand- 

 ard was generally adopted, have either 

 become obsolete or have deteriorated 

 to such an extent in vigor and produc- 

 tiveness that now the five-fold yield is 

 the rare exception, instead of the rule. 

 A five-fold yield of the general line of 

 garden peas has been realized but once 

 in eight years, the average for the oth- 

 er seven being from three and one-half 

 to four fold. Now in view of the con- 

 tinued deterioration in both seed and 

 soil, no material improvement in con- 

 ditions can be looked for. and while 

 five-fold yields will occur at infrequent 

 intervals, when Mother Nature is in a 

 pai-ticularly beneficent mood, slowly 

 diminishing yields are much more 

 likely to be the rule. 



As vigor and character decline in a 

 variety the tendency to "sport" be- 

 comes more marked, and the care and 

 expense of keeping it true to type in- 

 creases. 



Eternal vigilance is not only the 

 price of liberty, but of qiiality. and it 

 is but stating a splendid truth to say 

 that quality is maintained only by in- 

 telligent, painstaking care and addi- 

 tional expense. Now, the quality of 

 seeds and their products vary almost 

 as widely as any given line in manu- 

 factures, and pure woollens cannot be 

 bought at the price of shoddy nor can 

 high-giade seeds be produced or 

 bought at the prices of degenerate 

 l)roducts. 



Twenty-five or thirty years ago when 

 yields of peas and beans averaged 

 materially higher than now, prices 

 were from twenty-five to fifty cents per 

 bushel higher, and yet the prices paid 

 the farmers were lower and the general 

 cost of doing business much less than 

 at present. While improved methods 

 of cultivation and harvesting have 

 greatly cheapened the cost of pro- 



ducing most farm crops, peas and 

 beans are produced by practically the 

 same methods as followed by our 

 fathers fifty years ago. Cost of pro- 

 duction has not been lessened in any 

 essential respect, while the general 

 cost of doing business has greatly in- 

 creased, and there are no prospects of 

 any lowering of cost in the immediate 

 future. There has never been any 

 justification for tlie lowering of 

 growing prices of peas and beans, 

 but the seed trade has al- 

 ways been afflicted with certain 

 wild-eat speculators and plungers who 

 in theii' eagerness to get business have 

 cut prices from time to time always 

 seeking to be below their reputable 

 competitors. Of course, this cutting 

 of prices was followed at once by a 

 lowering of quality, as few dealers and 

 fewer canners were willing to recog- 

 nize any difference in quality of seed 

 and virtually compelled the reputable 

 grower to meet prices of all comers. 

 Even his stocks suffered, as he found 

 it impossible to put the time and ex- 

 pense on them necessary to keep up 

 the standard of quality. From this de- 

 moralized condition the growers are 

 now recovering, and once again round- 

 ing their seed stocks into proper con- 

 dition. Give them the needed encour- 

 agement and, in a few years more, 

 stocks will again fairly represent their 

 names and types. 



Catalogue prices have finally been 

 settled, and the first catalogues will 

 soon be out. and the prediction is 

 made that onion seed prices will be 

 disappointingly low in many of them 

 and it is not improbable that the mak- 

 ers will be among the most disap- 

 pointed in final results. 



While high tide in the price of peas 

 has no doubt been reached, it is not 

 so with corn, and not before February 

 will this be the case, unless those who 

 are deiiending on this year's crops 

 learn the actual facts sooner, and 

 abandon vain hopes that it may finally 

 round into shaiie for seed. When 

 this fact is finally aijpreciated there 

 will be some interesting "doin's." 



The damage to Lima beans caused 

 by the rains in October proves very 

 serious. Beans caught in the rain 

 have suffered so severely that the 

 shrinkage will be from forty to fifty 

 l)er cent, and the cost of hand-picking 

 from 60 to 7.5c. per bushel, thus mak- 

 ing every bushel of beans cost from 

 $t).00 to $6. .50. This will leave the 

 growers with a balance on the wrong 

 side of the ledger. 



There have been rumors for some 

 time of discriminations in favor of 

 canners against the seedsmen by cer- 

 tain growers of peas and beans, which 

 seem to be well founded. Of course 

 there can be but one opinion of such 

 ac ion. that it is essentially dislione;-.':. 

 and is done to curry favor with the 

 canners because they are usually buy- 

 ers of much larger quantities of a few 

 varieties than the average seedsman. 

 If seedsmen are satisfied, and do not 

 comi)lain of such treatment no one 

 else need concern himself with the 

 matter. But are the seedsmen aware 

 of this discrimination? It scarcely 

 seems reasonable to suppose they 

 would not enter a protest if they 

 knew it. 



MICHELLS 



SEEDS 



m 



f Are Always Reliable. | 



MARKET ST. 

 PHILA. 



WHULtSALE CATALOGUE FREE 



S, 



In a season like this, when Alaskas, 

 Admirals, Horsford's Market Garden, 

 Advancers and Surjirise are eagerly 

 bought by canners at $5.00 to $0.00 

 Iter bushel to raise the canner's per- 

 centage on these varieties from 10 to 

 -5 per cent, above the seedsman's, 

 looks to disinterested eyes like a very 

 unjust proceeding and is certainly de- 

 priving the seedsman of a very hand- 

 some profit on whatever quantities he 

 loses by this action of the growers. 



The severe cold of last week, when 

 the mercury touched zero over the 

 greater portion of the Atlantic, Mid- 

 dle and Central Western States, must 

 have ended whatever hopes were en- 

 tertained of saving soft and immature 

 sugar corn, which really constitutes 

 75 per cent, of this year's crop of the 

 late varieties, though even now this 

 fact is not generally appreciated, and 

 it will doubtless be some weeks yet 

 before it percolates through the cran- 

 iums of many who are depending on 

 this year's crops. 



Information comes to hand that the 

 principal growers of peas and beans 

 intend to advance their contracting 

 prices for the 1908 crop of peas, and 

 particularly the canner's varieties. 

 This is a wise move and in view of 

 the known scarcity ot seed stocks 

 particularly of the wrinkled sorts, 

 there should be no serious difficulty in 

 getting their prices. Compared with 

 the farmers who grow peas for the 

 canning factory, those who grow seed 

 realize but little over half as much 

 !icr acre and it requires some little 

 more labor and expense to produce a 

 crop of seed; owing to the establish- 

 ing of canning factories in the seed 

 groXving belts of Michigan and Wis- 

 consin this fact is being learned by 

 the farmers, and as a consequence it 

 is becoming increasingly difficult for 

 the seed grower to secure his acreage. 



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I GLADIOLI I 



S I can satisfactorily supply your S 



S wants for Gladioli for forcing or S 



S outdoor planting. Mixtures, color SS 



S sections or named varieties of S 



S exceptional beauty. 5 



S Write for Prices g 



I ARTHUR CO"WEE | 



C Gladiolus Specialist S 



= Meadowvole Farm, BERLIN, N.Y S 



S S 



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