JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ January 7, 18C9. 



than haU a pound. Mr. Frost, the well-known nurseryman of 

 Hiiidstone, pronounced them the finest he had ever seen flower 

 in the open air. The Mushrooms came up epontaneously. — 

 G. Leeds, Gardener to the Maijor of Maidstone. 



ADULTERATION OF SEEDS. 



BmXACTS FROM THE SECOND INTERIM REPORT BY THE BOYAIi 

 HORTICULTORAL SOCIETY'S SUB-COMMITTEE. 



The crop of many of the seeds which form the staple of the seeds- 

 man's basiuess is always nncertain and precarious in this conntry. 

 A single night's frost at a critical period may destroy the whole of 

 the crops of Turnips, Mangold, Cauliflower, or Cabbage seed exposed 

 to it. The seedsman thus can never calculate on the supply of the 

 coining year. It may be a failure ; and he most properly provides 

 agaiast this by laying in a large stoclt when the crop is abundant 

 and good. But what is he to do with the large stoch so laid up in 

 the case of a sequence of two or three good years ? He uses it up by 

 mixing the product of the different years together. By-and-by a bad 

 year comes, but, by the seedsman's precautions and forethought, a 

 snfficicat over-supply from previous years remains in stock, ard the 

 «oantry is not unprovided. From such occasional intermixture there 

 is a. natural and easy descent to a constant lowering of the average. 

 Troublesome questions are put if the seed is found better or worse one 

 year than anotber. So it comes to be tbought that it would bo more 

 easy for the seedsman, and less troublesome for the customer, if it 

 were kept always at about the same average, and the price corre- 

 spondingly lowered ; and so the system of regular manipulation and 

 tampering with the quality is introduced. 



The next stage of introducing killed seed instead of old dead seed 

 IB still more easy. It is obviously much more to the customer's 

 advantage, if the average is to be lowered, that it should be done by 

 the intermixture of clean fresh-killed seed, ratber than of old musty 

 seed, full of the spores of fungi and the eggs of insects. So regarded, 

 the introduction of killed seed is a boon to the buyer instead of an 

 injury. There is, indeed, anotber point of ^aew from wbich to look at 

 it. The old dead seed betrays its presence ; the killed seed does not : 

 and so the purchaser is deprived of that means of testing the quality 

 of tlie article he purchases. 



Everythiug is thus thrown npon the honesty of the dealer. He 

 fixes the price, he regulates the quality, and the pui-chaser is kept in 

 the dark, and has no check upon either. This is a temptation beyond 

 irhat the average frailty of human nature ought in fairness to be ex- 

 posed to. 



It is not to be supposed that the existing system could have reached 

 its present maguituda through the separate and independent action of 

 individuals ; it is the combined actici of the trade which has done it. 

 At what time it commenced your Committee have not learned ; but it 

 is no modern device. Most of the present members of tbe seed trade 

 have succeeded to it as to a fatal heritage, and they have found them- 

 selves constrained to conform to tbe traditional custom of the trade, 

 •or run the risk of sacrificing important and weU- established busi- 

 nesses to the ruin of themselves and their families. 



The combined action of the trade, which has consolidated the system, 

 has been exertud through a trade's club, or association, something in 

 -the nature of a trade's union, which as in other businesses, the 

 London wholesale seedsmen have established among themselves. One 

 •pi the chief fuiictions of the association is, as yonr Committee are 

 .^informed, the regulation of prices and the determination, by mutual 

 'consultation and advice, what kinds of seeds should have their average 

 lowered, and to ^^hat extent it should be done. 



Accordingly the practice has taken root so firmly, and ramified in so 

 Toany directions, that it now penetrates every branch of the business. 

 Of its extent no stronger evidence can be given than the regular quota- 

 tion in ceiiaiu of the seed trade lists of tlie prices of "•' uctt seed,' and 

 ■*' ti-io," or " UUO," — " nett seed" meaning good seed which has not 

 ieeu adulterated or mixed, — " ti-io," or " 000," meaning seed whose 

 vitality has been killed for the purpose of mixing with good seed. 



It must not be supposed, however, that there are no exceptions to 



tlie universality of the practice ; the results of yonr Committee's in- 



■q^uiries, confirmed, as they have been, by the trials recorded in 



'last report, enable them to speak to the contrary. From these, were 



it their cue to do so, they could name the few houses which px-oceed 



"^on a different system, and which ai*e struggling single-handed against 



the ovenvhelming preponderance of those who do not. But to do so 



■would be by implication to reflect on others ; and as the object of the 



'•Council in this inquiry is entirely of an impersonal nature — to redress 



.^a public grievance, and not to attack individuals, — they feel bound to 



, refrain from mentioning names on either side, even when the mention 



would be laudatory. 



Of the complication and diflacnlty of doing away with the system, 



an idea may be formed from some of the following facts. Instead of 



■■jrarchasing these seeds from growers in the market, wholesale seeds- 



'inen find it necessary to enter into a sort of qua si -partnership, or 



;3oint adventure, with the growers. They supply them with the seeds 



'.tthey want grown, and receive the product from them after harvest at 



/■certain previously fixed, or proportionally arranged prices. In no 



other way (of growing by a thud party) could they make sure that the 



seeds they purchase were of the kind they wanted, the seeds of many 



different species, and especially of varieties, being un distinguishable. 

 Unless they knew that the produce of any particular field was to be 

 their own, they would neither have the right nor the interest to 

 examine it while growing, to make sure of its kind. As may be sup- 

 posed, the bargains with these growers vary infinitely; sometimes the 

 seedsman is the owner of the soil, and the grower his tenant ; and 

 leases or bargains for growing seeds, extending over many years, have 

 been entered into on the faith of the continuance of the present system 

 of conducting the seed business. 



Again, one apology for the present system is, that under it the 

 seedsman keeps the price much mor*; equable from year to year than 

 it would otherwise be. He charges always more nearly the same price, 

 trusting to the average of years and prices equalising things in the 

 course of a number of years. Your Committee do not think that this 

 uniformity of price is any advantage to the purchasers, but a great 

 disadvantage, if obtained, as it is, at the cost of variation in the 

 quality of the seeds. But the fact being that, whether an advantage 

 or not, the seedsmen have been to a certain extent acting upon it, it is 

 plain that injuiy might be iutUcted npon them if the system were 

 suddenly put a stop to. If, for example, a seedsman is now in the 

 midst of a course of years, of which the first half, which is past, has 

 been bad, a sudden change would deprive him of the chance of restor- 

 ing things during the remainder of his cycle of years, which, as the 

 first half had been disadvantageous, he might reasonably expect to be 

 good. 



At the same time matters cannot be allowed to remain as they are ; 

 and your Committee's first idea was, that the seedsmen themselvea 

 should undertake their own deliverance. They believe that these gentle- 

 men are themselves thoroughly in earnest in their desire to get rid o£ 

 the present system ; nay. more, they believe that the more respectable 

 members of the trade take no advantage from it, that their profits are 

 not greater than those of other similar branches of industry, and that 

 pecuniarily they would be gainers by the abolition of the system, and 

 the substitution of a higher price for a better quality of seeds. But it 

 is to be feared that they are so hedged in by the engagements and 

 bargains that they have made, that it is very doubtful if they would 

 be able to shake themselves free from its trammels by any efforts of 

 their own. And even although they could, and were, by a unani- 

 mous resolution of the trade, to renounce all mixing of scoda thence- 

 forward, the public would not benefit ; on the contraiy, they would be 

 losers — for, instead of having the system conducted, as at present, by 

 men of respectability, who, at least, aimed at providing a constant 

 supply, the public would find their places supplied by a lower and 

 more unscrupulous class, who would have no object but fleecing the 

 public as rapidly and filling their own pockets as full they could. 

 Any effort for good must, therefore, not be limited to the voluntary 

 abstinence of individuals, but must be compulsory and of universal 

 application. 



It may be said that if, notwithstanding the unfavourable appear- 

 ances arising from their erroneous system, the seedsmen do really 

 conduct tbeii- business so fairly and honestly and with such attention 

 to the welfare of the public, why should any change be made at all ? 

 "Why not allow matters to remain as they arg ? If all did so, and all 

 would continue to do so, and no farther lowering of the averages would 

 be practised by the retail seedsmen and small dealers, the public 

 might be content to allow matters to remain as they are ; but it is 

 patent and notorious to all that the reverse of all this is the case. 

 Not even all the wholesale seedsmen are content with the lowness of 

 average fixed by their own association (see the results of the trials in 

 last report) ; and the average of the stock of the small countiy dealers 

 who have been supplied with seed filtered through two or three retail 

 hands must be correspondingly bad. But, more than this, yonr Com- 

 mittee learn from a reliable source that some of the growers themselves 

 have begun to lower the average before it leaves their hands. It can 

 scarcely be denied that this is a fraud suggested by the example of 

 the seedsmen themselves. The practices they have taught them they 

 execute; and it shall go hard but they will better the instruction. The 

 half-educated husbandmen will be slow to appreciate the difference 

 between an admixture of lifeless seed by themselves and one by their 

 employer, or to believe that what is fraud on their part is only esti- 

 mable precaution on that of the others. Nor until the seedsman dis- 

 tinctly warns his customers that he is not selling "nett seed," will the 

 public generally admit the distinction. 



Tour Committee are of opinion, therefore, that something more than 

 good resolutions on the jiart of the trade are absolutely essential ; 

 what that should bo is the difficulty. Various suggestions have been 

 made to your Committee ; but they have found no one plan adequate 

 to meet the evil. An application to the Board of Trade for the ap- 

 pointment of a Government inspector has been suggested by some; 

 either trials of seed at the request of dealers themselves, or unknown 

 to them, and the publication of the results has been recommended by 

 others : and the passing of an Act of Parliament to render it penal to 

 adulterate or to mix killed seed with good seed, is the specific of a 

 considerable number of men whose opinion is entitled to respect j but 

 your Committee have been unable to see that any one of these steps 

 would of itself be sufiicient to meet the end. Probably a combination, 

 or rather a selection, of them might, especially if supported by genuine 

 and sincere exertions on the part of the trade itself. For actual 

 adulteration (as of Clover seed) an Act seems indispensable; no one 

 will object to this ; but your Committee think it should also extend to 



