GUARANTEES IN THE TRADE IN SEED 87 



It will be seen that the Bill went rather further than the 

 " automatic control," in so far as it required the seller to 

 guarantee not only the variety but even the " strain," that is, 

 not only those characters of the samples which can be estimated 

 by an analysis but those inner, inherited characters of the seed 

 which an analysis is unable to reveal, but which only appear 

 when the seeds are sown and the plants grown to full develop- 

 ment, those characteristics, in fact, which make certain strains 

 more productive and otherwise more useful than others, and 

 according to which the awards at the Comparative Cultivations 

 of roots are given. It was, I believe, fortunate, that a legis- 

 lative attempt to protect the " strains " as early as the year 

 1896 was not carried through, because at that time the full 

 understanding of the meaning of " strain " was far from 

 common property. It might have spoiled the development 

 if it had been forced. In the following pages we shall see how 

 all and more than all of what was aimed at by the Bill of 1896 

 for the protection of the buyer of a special strain has been gained 

 by voluntary action, under Helweg's firm, unremitting and 

 clear guidance. When the merchants in 1896 thought they 

 were then giving sufficient guarantee they little dreamed of 

 what they or their successors would be doing, and doing 

 voluntarily and gladly, twenty years later. It has been 

 repeatedly stated of late years by the leading seed merchants, 

 that without the guarantee of the strain, as now almost univer- 

 sally given, no respectable and high class trade could be carried 

 on nor be protected against undesirable and inferior com- 

 petitors. The security which the Bill of 1896 proposed for the 

 farmers is now looked upon as a security for the merchants. 

 To explain how this has been brought about will be the aim 

 of the next pages. 



In " the good old times " anybody could deal in root seeds 

 without even knowing how the roots looked. It was enough 

 that a dealer bought seed of some variety of roots from abroad 

 or from a Danish merchant who had imported it, he could then 

 offer it to farmers under the name of the variety. And there 

 were then many varieties in the market. Few merchants and 

 still fewer farmers troubled about the purity or germination 

 of the seed, still fewer had any idea of what yield of roots the 



