46 BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



vines will more than counterbalance the additional price re- 

 ceived for the extra early pods, while, if you let them remain 

 until the whole crop is fit and then pick them, they will be 

 so mature as to spoil the sale of the others. I think every 

 experienced cultivator here will agree with me that, in most 

 cultures, if the best and the poorest one-fifth of the plants 

 were uniformly of the same character of growth and quality 

 of crop as the remaining three-fifths, the cost of culture and 

 marketing would be greatly reduced and the profit of the 

 crop materially increased. The man who grows plants for 

 fun or for his cake and pie desires variation, something new, 

 that means surprise and pleasure ; while he who grows them 

 for his bread and butter desires uniformity, for that means 

 profit. 



I have tried to show the importance of uniformity of type 

 and quality and the sad want of it in most commercial seeds, 

 but I do not want to unjustly accuse our seed growers and 

 dealers of dishonest or at least questionable practices. I 

 have had a somewhat intimate acquaintance with men of the 

 seed trade for the past thirty years, and I unhesitatingly say 

 I certainly know of no class of business or professional men 

 ■ — not even doctors and ministers, whom I have known al- 

 most as well as seedsmen — who as a class are more honor- 

 able and upright in dealing than they are. They are no more 

 responsible for the evils spoken of than are the seed users. 

 They have come as a result of a general ignorance or neglect 

 of certain principles of plant growth and of weakness of 

 character which are common to all men, — the desire to get 

 something for nothing, to buy at the lowest and to sell at the 

 highest possible price, regardless of real value. The contempt 

 of familiar old things and the desire for that which is new is 

 not confined to seed growers or seed users. 



I don't wish to pose as the man with a muck rake, but 

 wish to occupy the balance of my time in suggestion of meth- 

 ods of possible improvement. In doing so I must again ask 

 that you pardon me if I speak of things already well known 

 to you. 



Every plant grown from seed has a certain definite and 

 changeless character which was inherent in the seed from 



