72 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



As you probably know, many of our varieties of vegetable 

 seed, excepting peas, beans, cabbage, celery, cucumber, and onion, 

 and perhaps a few others, are imported. Such seed, even if of 

 good quality when shipped, sometimes becomes impaired in tran- 

 sit, from dampness or other reasons. On the other hand, on 

 account of the absence of any plan of seed control in this coun- 

 try, the Europeans have an excellent outlet here for their cheap 

 wares, a fact of which they frequently take advantage. 



Owing to the methods of culture, as well as their size, form, and 

 weight, vegetable seeds are usually much cleaner than those of 

 grasses and other forage plants. Where seedsmen raise vegeta- 

 bles for seed purposes, they generally take particular pains to 

 keep them free from weeds, a much easier task than in the cases 

 of grasses, clovers, etc. Furthermore, seeds of grasses and for- 

 age plants, as a rule, are harder to clean. I am told, however, by 

 one who has been in the seed trade for many years, that there is 

 a good deal of fraud practised by mixing small gravel and sand 

 with vegetable seeds to increase their weight, as such seed is gen- 

 erally sold in bulk by weight. Dirt is sometime s mixed with onion 

 seeM, and the excuse made Avlien such impurities are detected that 

 it is impossible to get all of the dirt and stones out of the seed. 



Again, " dead " or " killed " seed is sometimes mixed with good 

 seed. An instance, quoted to me by one Avho was personally 

 acquainted with the transaction, related to a lot of vegetable seed 

 which was received by a certain American firm. The seed 

 proved to be a variety very inferior to that ordered. To make 

 good the loss and avoid detection at the same time this seed was 

 heated until the embryo was killed, when it Avas mixed Avith 

 some of the genuine, higher priced variety, and sold as sucli. 

 Similar instances are reported from Europe and are undoubtedly 

 more common than is generally known. 



A few years ago the Maine Experiment Station tested a con- 

 siderable amount of vegetable seeds bought from American seeds- 

 ]nen. The following are the percentages of germination of seeds 

 obtained from one dealer : Lettuce 0, turnip 4, cabbage 91, pars- 

 nip 0, celery 33, onion 0, beet 48, carrot 23, tomato 57, radish 8/). 

 Of the ten varieties tested three were entirely worthless, one 

 nearly so, four others below the standard, one nearly up to the 

 proper standard, while only a single variety of tliem all was Avhat 

 it should have been. I regret to say that in this case a Massa- 



