EIGHTH ANNUAL YEAK BOOK— PART III. 75 



is absolutely prohibited from selling seeds containing any noxious 

 weed seeds. The thought is, that a man who gets these weeds in 

 the land is not only injured in the loss of the purchase price of the 

 seeds, but a thousand-fold more in the difficulty of getting the 

 weeds in the soil. The seed dealer is prohibited from selling seeds 

 containing any of these particular noxious weed seeds. Then he 

 is required to have his seeds to a certain standard of purity. That 

 is, if a man buys a bushel of timothy seed he is entitled to get 96 

 per cent of timothy seed, the other 4 per cent may be harmless 

 mixtures of weed seeds, which simply goes to the loss of the value 

 of the price of the seed. The dealer is permitted to sell under the 

 statute seed containing less than the standard of purity, but in 

 that case he must put on a label stating the names of the seeds 

 present and the amount of it. So that a man might sell clover 

 seed, for instance, with which some timothy seed had been mixed. 

 In that case he could easily take the timothy seed out. The 

 thought is that the farmer is to be protected against the purchase, 

 first, of seeds containing these noxious weed seeds, and against the 

 purchase of seed represented to be pure seed. 



These are the three phases of the law, and I am frank to admit 

 the law has not been well enforced, for the reasons suggested. If 

 this law is finally upheld, the feeders of this state will pretty nearly 

 know what percentage protein, fibre and fat is contained in the 

 food which they buy; and the thought is that an intelligent man 

 will be able to determine what value in dollars and cents the feed 

 has he is buying, and that on the seeds, he will have the same 

 chance to protect his pocktbook and will be fully protected against 

 the chances of getting these noxious weeds into his field, which are 

 so extremely difiicult to eradicate. 



I may say, in closing, that the committee of which Gov. Packard 

 is chairman, has in hand now the investigation of some weeds as 

 they appear in this state, the intention being to get legislation to 

 control them and eradicate them, the intention being to perpetuate 

 the usefulness of our soil to the greatest extent possible by eradi- 

 cating the weeds which are so detrimental. If there are any ques- 

 tions I can answer, I should be glad to attempt to do so. 



Question: Mr. Wright says the farmers are protected. If a 

 farmer has got a lot of seeds himself, and he sells timothy seed or 

 clover to his neighbor, and he is not in a position to get this exact 

 per cent, where is he at? 



Mr. Wright: The law makes an exception in that case, which 

 is as follows: "The provisions concerning agricultural seeds con- 



