GUARANTEES IN THE TRADE IN SEED 91 



1902) liable to pay to the farmers compensation for seed sold, 

 amounting to the difference in value of the crop resulting from 

 the seed delivered and of the crop which would have resulted 

 had the seed been of the kind which the buyer had demanded 

 and which the seller had professed to deliver. The com- 

 pensation, fixed by inspection in the field by experts, 

 was sometimes twenty or thirty times the amount of the 

 invoice. 



There is another proof that the retailer was obliged to pay 

 full compensation to the farmer, a proof which incidentally 

 shows the truly remarkable trust both farmers and dealers put 

 in Helweg, and which was fully deserved by his integrity and 

 his enthusiasm in seeing justice done and progress made in 

 all that concerns the cultivation of roots. When he pointed 

 out in his annual reports on the trade in root seed that not 

 unfrequently seed was delivered to farmers which produced 

 2 less value of roots per acre than if the seed had been of the 

 strain which it professed to be, farmers came to him with their 

 complaints. For a number of years he was called upon every 

 autumn to inspect root crops, and when he found that they were 

 not of the strain professed, he fixed the compensation which he 

 deemed due to the farmers. And the retailers paid the amounts 

 claimed. Helweg concludes, not without good reason, that 

 had the retailers thought they could avoid payment by going 

 to Court, or that they would have been let off with a less pay- 

 ment, they would surely have tried that procedure. If they 

 did not, he concludes that their solicitors had advised them 

 rather to pay the compensation fixed by him. 1 



There had even been at least one case where a dealer had 

 wilfully altered the labels in the bags of seed. He had bought 

 seed which was described as " similar to Sludstrup Barres " ; 

 he removed the labels with this inscription and replaced them 

 by labels stating the seed to be " Sludstrup," a strain then 

 bearing a Class I. certificate from the Comparative Cultivations. 

 This was a fraud, and the dealer was punished by imprisonment 

 under Sect. 251 of the Penal Code. 



By the beginning of this century the trade in root seed had 

 begun to recognise the " strains " and to offer seed of the 



1 Tidsskrift for Planteavl, 23 vol., 1916, p. 640. 



