174 



HOETICULTUEE 



August 9, 1913 



ARE STANDARDS OF PURITY PRACTICABLE IN 



SEED LAWS ? 



A Paper Read by George S. Green Before the American Seed Trade Association, June, 1913. 



I have agreed with our President to 

 open this subject for discussion, and 

 not to prepare an exhaustive study of 

 it. The title of the paper, as printed 

 in the program, was selected for me, 

 and not by myself, but really it is too 

 narrow to cover the questions at issue 

 with regard to seed legislation, and I 

 think discussion should go into the 

 general features of practicable seed 

 legislation and not be confined to the 

 question of standards of purity. 



Laws Wise and Unwise. 



My opinion as to the proper pro- 

 vince of criminal law is, that it should 

 be invoked only to punish or restrain 

 the man who has done, or would do 

 serious injury to his neighbor or to 

 society at large. Laws which hamper 

 or restrict the action of the man who 

 Is, upon the whole, performing useful 

 service to society may easily do more 

 harm than good, unless very carefully 

 considered. Progress toward perfec- 

 tion in human conduct will always 

 come rather from the growth of better 

 ideals in individuals and in the com- 

 munity than from the compulsion of 

 law. 



Some well-meaning but unwise re- 

 formers think that law should so 

 closely hedge about the conduct of In- 

 dividuals that any slight departure 

 from their own ideals will be met with 

 severe punishment. Laws based upon 

 such ideals frequently are faulty be- 

 cause natural conditions prevent their 

 enforcement. 



Any law which is unenforced or un- 

 enforceable, works a great injustice 

 against the law-abiding man who tries 

 to conform to burdensome or impos- 

 sible conditions only to find the law Is 

 dead, and does not, and cannot regu- 

 late the conduct of his less scrupulous 

 or less careful competitor. 



9 



Absurd Standards. 

 Many seed laws have been iiroposed, 

 and some of them passed, which have 

 established standards of purity so high 

 that it has been impossible to produce 

 or re-clean seeds in quantity so that 

 they would conform to the law. In 

 some instances the first official act of 

 officers charged with the enforcement 

 of the law has been to practically nul- 

 lify portions of the law, because they 

 could not be enforced. Such stand- 

 ards of purity are absurd and should 

 never again be incorporated in a law. 

 Every such law enacted defeats and 

 delays that reasonable regiilation of 

 the seed business which will undoubt- 

 edly sometime be In effect in most of 

 the states. A reasonable standard of 

 purity to which seedsmen having 

 proper equipment can conform, is prob- 

 ably a wise and proper provision of 

 a seed law, but it is my belief that 

 when seeds have been cleaned to such 

 a standard they should be salable In 

 any and all states, without tags or 

 restrictions of any kind. Seeds below 

 this standard should be tagged with 

 reasonably full information, showing 

 the relatively low grade of the seed, 

 and a second and lower standard 



might also be provided, and the sale of 

 the seeds below this standard prohib- 

 ited. The Iowa seed law is construct- 

 ed somewhat along these lines, and it 

 has yrobably been the most effective 

 and beneficial law in force in any of 

 the states. If some of the defects of 

 the Iowa law could be corrected, and 

 if it could then be made the law of 

 every state of the Union, seedsmen 

 would know how to conduct their bus- 

 iness, the farmer would be protected 

 and the general food of agriculture 

 conserved. 



The trouble from which seedsmen 

 suffer most now Is the multiplicity 

 and variety of standards, and of laws. 

 Standards too high, standards too low, 

 standards wise, standards foolish, ger- 

 mination standards, tags in many 

 styles and sizes, licenses, require- 

 ments to state the place of growth, 

 the year of growth, the purity by count 

 the exact percentage of each and 

 every impurity in every parcel, of 

 seed; all these confront the seedsmen 

 doing a general business. As yet no 

 eminent lawmaker has proposed that 

 each and every seed shall be labeled 

 with all these facts, but the decade is 

 still young and the brains of the law- 

 makers busy. 



The "Boston Bill." 



If, in some way, we could secure 

 one reasonable, sensible, effective law 

 which could be enacted in each and 

 every state, repealing existing legisla- 

 tion, and be backed up by appropria- 

 tions sufficiently large to fully enforce 

 it, I believe reliable seedsmen would 

 have much cause for congratulation. 



It has now been three and a half 

 years since the date of the Boston 

 meeting between seed analysts and 

 seedsmen. The so-called "Boston 

 Bill" was the result of that meeting 

 and was a compromise between those 

 of us who favored a law with a reason- 

 able standard of purity and those who 

 wanted every package of seed tagged. 

 "Boston Bill" seemed to be quite a 

 lusty infant at the time of his birth, 

 but he hasn't grown much. He now 

 looks to me like an orphan, and I 

 question whether the seed analysts 

 who helped with his "horning" will 

 do much more for "Boston Bill." 



The "Boston Bill" proposed no 

 standards of purity, except freedom 

 from certain obnoxious weeds, but 

 since the date of the Boston meeting a 

 number of state laws have been 

 passed, most of which, I think, have 

 established standards of purity, and 

 many of which have established stand- 

 ards of germination. 



Germination Standards. 



You all know how we seedsman re- 

 gard the requirement of some laws 

 that seeds sold shall be labeled to show 

 their germination. The testimony of 

 nearly all seed expert analysts is 

 against the reasonableness of such re- 

 quirements, and practically all seeds- 

 men and the most conservative seed 

 analysts are agreed upon the fact that 



wide variations in tests on duplicate 

 samples are obtained from well 

 equipped and reliable testing stations. 

 This fact, of Itself, makes a germi- 

 nation clause in any seed law highly 

 objectionable. It is like a law pro- 

 viding that goods must be sold by the 

 yard, subject to test by an elastic 

 yard-stick, which may vary all the way 

 from 20 to 36 Inches in length. It the 

 people Interested in the improvement 

 of agricultural conditions will start a 

 propaganda which will induce the 

 farmer to test the germination of all 

 seeds he uses in the same way that he 

 has recently been testing bis seed 

 corn, this vexing question of germi- 

 nation In seed laws would soon be dis- 

 posed of, for the reason that the oc- 

 casional seedsman who is not careful 

 to sell only seeds of reasonably high 

 germination would very soon be put 

 out of business. There would then be 

 no more complaint on this score, and 

 no more demand for such provisions In 

 a seed law. In a case where it Is so 

 easily possible for the buyer to pro- 

 tect himself against fraud it seems 

 unnecessary to burden the statute 

 books of our states with legislation so 

 difficult of enforcement, so uncertain 

 in application, and so unfair to seeds- 

 men as any law dealing with germi- 

 nation of seed must be. 1 feel that I 

 am well within the facts when I assert 

 that much over 99 per cent of the field 

 seeds now sold by reputable seedsmen 

 are of sufficiently high germination to 

 produce a good stand when sown on a 

 properly prepared seed bed, with rea- 

 sonably favorable weather conditions. 

 To subject a trade with such a record 

 as this to the inconvenience and injus- 

 tice attending a germination require- 

 ment seems unwise when the means of 

 preventing a very occasional fraud 

 lies so easily within the reach of 

 every buyer. 



Purity Standards. 

 I know that there are many serious 

 objections which may be urged against 

 standards of purity, but if we could 

 have uniform laws containing stand- 

 ards somewhat similar to those 

 contained in the Iowa law, and 

 could have free and unrestricted 

 trade in seeds above these stand- 

 ards. I believe the advantages to 

 the trade would far o\itweigh the 

 disadvantages. I believe the lack 

 of standards of purity in the Boston 

 Bill has been one reason for its not 

 being more generally acceptable to 

 legislators and to state seed officials. 

 The Boston Bill has many excellent 

 provisions' which should be contained 

 in any workable seed law, but I believe 

 the Bill should be re-w ritten to include 

 standards of purity such as I have 

 suggested, and should then be intro- 

 duced and aggressively pushed in the 

 legislature of every state at the earli- 

 est opportunity. The time for delay 

 has passed, and if we can line up a 

 united support among the seed trade 

 for an aggressive and progressive 

 fight in favor of reasonable legislation, 

 and not confine ourselves to an ob- 



