2U 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTDKE AND COTTAGE GAKDENEB. [ Septombsr la, 18M. 



Mil. Cnoss. — If I, as a private centlemfin, were to write to yoa an 

 order for Tnmip seed I ghoald roI net seed. I understand von to »aj ? 

 — Yes, at least, no killed seed with it. 



If I wore to \vrite to an ordinorj- seedcman in the same town speeify- 

 itiR tbat I wanted some of your seed, I shoald get mixed seed .' — Most 

 probably. 



i):t pL.iYt Ain. — Yonr interpretation of not seed is not seed of tbat 

 year'8 growth, bat nuaJnlterated seed of a certain average :'— I would 

 not say of a certain average. 



It may be superior mixed with inferior, or inferior miicd with 

 superior ? — Yes. 



Mil. Cross. — But I shonlJ get a different (loss of seed if I went to 

 you direct from what I should get if I wont to one of your retail 

 customers ?— You might for one year, but I do not think thot yon would 

 for seven years togetl-er. 



Dr. PL.ivnin.— Why do yon take seven years:'— I tske seven years 

 a.? a fair datum to go upon, but yon might take fourteen, if it were 

 preferred. 



Mb. M'Laoan. — Did I rightly understand yon to say, that you do 

 not mix to increase the gemiiiiating power of the seeds, but always to 

 decrease it ?— Most certoinly not. If the seed this year is bad. and last 

 year s seed is good, we mix to increase ; we keep the best growth for that 

 very purpose in case of a failure or depreciated growth in the nest year. 



Y'oa said that it was immaterial to the farmer whether killed seed or 

 old seed was mixed to bring the growth of the seed to the average ? — If 

 a man gets seed to grow, soy, 7.) per cent., and if we know that for all 

 ordinary purposes it will give him a good average crop, I cannot see 

 what difference it makes to the fanner whether that seed is mixed with 

 killed seed or with .seed of an inferior growth. 



Supposing that it is mixed with killed seed first, that seed is warranted 

 not to grow, therefore the farmer will not expect to see a plant from it ? 

 — It is not warranted. 



You do not expect that killed seed to grow ? 

 to see it grow. 



-No ; I should he sorry 



If yon substitute old seed for that killed seed, that old seed may be 

 several years of age, and as seed gets older it is longer in germination, 

 13 it not ? — Xot very materially. 



Do you mean that three-years -old seed will germinate in the same 

 time as one-year-old seed ?— No, but two-year-old seed and three-year- 

 old seed will not differ much in that respect. 



Between ten year-old seed and two-year-old seed will there he much 

 difference ?— If you go to those long dates, yon would treat it as dead 

 altogether ; you would not take into consideration the growth of that 

 seed. 



How many years would yon go down to ?— It would depend on how 

 the seeds were ripened ; I have known Mangold Wnrtzel grow well 

 when it was a dozen years old, and Broccoli. 



If you sold new seed mixed with old seed of different years, you 

 would have an irregular braird, wonld you not ? — Yes. 



Is not that irregular braird a disadvantage to the farmer ?— It would 

 be. possibly ; but if yon could have yonr field as level as this floor, 

 and if you could get yonr drill to go in the same depth, you wonld get 

 a regular braird. In the same season yon may see a long row of Man- 

 gold Wurtzel without a miss in the plant, and in the same row von 

 may also see several yards with scarcely a plant, from the drill go'ing 

 deeper into the soil. 



Take the case of a farmer having his land in the best condition, and 

 the weather as favourable as possible, and supposing that he sows 

 there some of that new seed mixed with old, and after a while an 

 irregular braird comes up, do yon think that an advantage for a 

 farmer? — I think the seedsman who knows his business will talte care 

 ■that he shall have seed where there is no material difference in time. 



How could yon do that ? — There is not more than two days' differ- 

 -ence between good Tnmip seed, one, two, and three years oldl 



Take it seven years old ? — Y'on seldom get that. 



I think yon said in yonr evidence that yon do not object at all to 

 mixing seed of different quality?— I do not. 



But what you object to is the killing of the seed ; you want to do 

 away with that ?— Y'es. 



Supposing that this Bill should pass, and that yon stamped out old 

 seed altogether, and that yon want still to reduce yonr germinating 

 power of seed to a certain standard, where will von get a sufficient 

 qnantity of old seed iu the country to do it ?— I do' not at all know ; I 

 think that when the old stock of seed was exhausted there would be an 

 end of the matter. 



Then you think that the effect of this Bill would be to do away with 

 having large quantities of old seed on hand ?— I think it will, so'far as 

 killed seed is concerned. 



In fact, whether you introduce old seed or not into the Bill, yon 

 will do away with the use of old seed through doing away with killed 

 seed ? — I think that it will pet used np. 



And consequently you think that tlio effect of this BUI wiU be to do 

 away with mixing altogether ?— It cannot do away with it. If we were 

 not to keep an old stock, sometimes the country would be bare. 



As I understand you, there is a large qnantity of killed seed mixed 

 and sold at the present time ? — Y'es. 



By the Bill you do away with that, and therefore you withdraw from 

 the market a very large quantity of seed ? — Y'es. 



That being the case, old seed wonld have to be snhstituted for a few 

 years for that killed seed ?— Yes. 



And afterwards, what send wonld yon have for mixing ? — No seed at 

 all, it would all go away as received from the growers. 



Yon wonld do away with mixing? — Yon might have an excess in 

 some years; Yes. Jn l^(».s you wend out what you want to come in 

 in IHtiU. You may ** calculate ou getting from that 21 bosheli an 

 acre." and instead of doing so you may get 40 bushels an acre. The 

 same thing may apply iu the following year. Then you get an excess 

 for your demand. 



I think you have admitted in your evidence already that there is 

 voiy little stock of old Tnmip seed in hand ? — I think there is Terr 

 little. 



And consequently the passing of this Bill wonld do away with the 

 mixing at all of any old seed, even with Tnmip seed ? — It wonld in a 

 year or two. 



If the Bill should pass, and killed seed should bo withdrawn from 

 the market altogether, would you still have the mixing carried on ? — 

 Y'ou must do It : you cannot carry ou the trade otherwise. Very often 

 you do not get enough seed of one year's growth, not half or a fourth 

 enough, to supply the wants of the country. 



Wonld yoQ be able to arrive at your standard as easily by mixing the 

 I new seed with old seed as by mixing it with killed seed? — Yes; there 

 I would be no difficulty about that. We always have our regular test 

 , every autumn. 



] And how often do yon test ? — Always in the autumn ; and if we hare 

 any doubts abont it at all we test again in the spring. 



That is after you have mixed the seed ? — That does not follow at all ; 

 probably it is before. 



Then do yon test both your new seed and your old seed in the 

 autumn and the spring? — Not always in the spring; we test them 

 when they come in. and if there is anything we have left over, we al- 

 ways test that ; and if there is anything doubtful in regard to our 

 growers as to the seed tested in lst>8, before we send that seed out in 

 the spring, we have it re-tried. 



Then you admit that seed is very apt to lose some germinating power 

 in six months, that is to say, from autumn to spring ? — Y'es ; it very 

 often does. 



Still yon scarcely admit that it will lose much germinating power in 

 the same number of years ? — It depends upon how ic has ripened ; 

 take late-ripening seeds, like Radish seed ; I knew seed the growth 

 of 1868 thrashed the same autumn, which grew very fair when it came 

 in, but in the following spring it grew very badly. So much depends 

 upon bow they ripened, and fifty different things. Y'on may get a 

 heavy frost in the mouth of October : that seed does not show it very 

 much at the time, but it does show it after yon have kept it three or 

 four or five months. 



After two years have passed, and you have a supply of old seed in 

 your stores, do you keep all the different years' growth separate ? — Not 

 always. 



They become mixed after a year or two ? — They become mixed of 

 necessity in this way. that you have mixed two already, and have not 

 sold all of that mixtute. 



You always have a qnantity of old seeds about yon? — Of some kinds. 

 Say of Turnip seed ? — 'We have a very small qnantity of that now. 

 But in prerious years had you always a small quantity ? — No ; some- 

 times we had a very large stock. If the seed comes down very low, yon 

 buy two years' consumption. I once knew seed to be worth 505. 

 a-bushel, and the next year it was bought for T.t. 



Now you have admitted that you generally mix seeds to bring them 

 to a certain standard ? — Yes. 



Having admitted that, do you see any difficulty in selling yonr seeds 

 according to that standard ; I mean in warranting them at that stan- 

 dard when you sell them ? — I think that there is a great difficulty in 

 that, because I would not rely upon people making a proper test. 



There is your own test to pot against theirs. That would be taken 

 in evidence against their test, would it not ? — I can give yon no other 

 reason than that of the diflicnlty of testing. 

 But yon test yourself*? — I test myself. 



.\nd yon sell it according to your test? — I wonld not guarantee it; 

 I could be prepared to prove that, according to my test, it grew so-and- 

 so ; but I cannot make other people bring out the same result. 



Do von keep samples of all the seeds that you sell ? — For a certain 

 time. 



Suppose that a complaint came in that some seeds which yon had 

 sold did not come up to the standard, wonld you not say that you were 

 quite ready te test it ? — Most certainly. 



What difficulty, then, wonld there be in guaranteeing it ?— That is 

 another thing. I could not bo certain that a man wonld use proper 

 discretion in sowing that seed and growing it. One man will get a 

 crop from seed, and another will get a total failure with seed out of the 

 same bag sown on the same day. I have this from a market gardener 

 within a fortnight with regard to Carrot seed ; and that is one of the 

 most difficult seeds we have to manage. He said that he was not going 

 to drill it: I said, '• Why not ? " He said, " Because last year he had 

 almost a tetal failure in that which was drilled, and just where it 

 happened to be on the headlands and to be trodden down it came as 

 thick as grass." He said, " If it had not been that I saw it grow, as 

 it did, on the headlands I should have believed that all the seed wliich 

 yon gave me was bad." 



I am supposing that yon sell guaranteed seed according to yonr 

 own test ; would yon object to that ? — ^I could not goarantee it. How 



