No. 4.] GARDEN SEEDS. 53 



from the seed will be of the desired type is bred into and 

 immutably fixed in the seed itself. With most gardeners the 

 price at which seed is offered, provided only that it is called 

 by the name by which they know the type and is of good 

 vitality, has more influence in determining the source of 

 their supply than the certainty of its being uniformly of the 

 exact type wanted. Many gardeners are always looking for 

 some new and improved variety. They will pick out a plant 

 which is simply an ideal specimen of the old and standard 

 sort they have, and say, If we could only get a variety which 

 was all like that, we would willingly pay most any price for 

 the seed. But the seedsmen who has by careful selection de- 

 veloped a stock of some standard sort which is a great im- 

 provement in uniformity of type knows that if he offers it 

 simply as a superior strain he will find it difficult to sell it 

 at a price which will compensate him for his extra labor; 

 but if he offers it under a new name, and describes it by a 

 glittering scintillation of superlative adjectives, which give 

 so little real information that the identity of the type is not 

 suspected, he can sell much more of it and at a much higher 

 price than he could if offered for what it really is. Rival 

 seedsmen soon discover the identity and offer their strain 

 under the new name, or a still different one, and the multi- 

 plication of names and the mixture of types goes merrily on. 

 If seed buyers would only be willing to guage the price they 

 pay more by the quality of the stock and less by claims for 

 novelty, there would soon be great improvement. Garden- 

 ers should also be more willing to recognize the fact that, 

 independent of the stock, there is often a great difference in 

 the cost of growing seed of different varieties of the same 

 species. Some of the most useful sorts that have ever been 

 developed have practically gone out of cultivation, or at least 

 are not offered by seedsmen, simply because it is so difficult 

 to grow the seed that they cannot afford to offer it at the 

 same price as that of other sorts, and gardeners refuse to 

 pay more, at least after the sort has ceased to be a " novelty." 

 Naturally, a seedsman pushes the sale of the sort which can 

 be produced most profitably, rather than one which, though 

 of really superior value, can be sold only at a loss. 



