SEED CONTROL. 73 



chusetts dealer sold the seeds. It is unnecessary to offer more 

 proof that worthless seed, is sold every year in American mar- 

 kets, a disagreeable subject and one which needs heroic treatment. 



The important question is. What are we going to do about it ? 

 Shall we continue to believe that the evils will regulate them- 

 selves in the ordinary course of competition, as the seedsman 

 would have his customers think ? Experience with commercial 

 fertilizers and adulterated food products ought to be sufficient 

 to satisfy the most sanguine farmer or gardener, that competition 

 among seedsmen is not going to insure him good seed. 



More than a quarter of a century ago these same questions 

 were forced upon the attention of European agriculturists as the 

 results of some tests of commercial seed made by Dr. jSTobbe, 

 director of the Experiment Station at Tharand, Saxony. Seed 

 control methods were introduced, and as the result there has 

 been a great improvement in the stock offered for sale. Poor seed 

 is on the European market, too, but no man on that continent 

 needs buy it unless he wants to do so. At the present time there 

 are over one hundred seed control stations in Europe, not a single 

 important countr}' being without one or more. Germany heads 

 the list with 38, Sweden has 16, Austria 14, Belgium 9, Kussia 7, 

 and Erance, England, and Scotland one each. Even Japan, 

 Brazil, and Java have one or more, the total number outside of 

 the United States amounting in 1894 to 117. In some cases 

 this work is conducted in connection with a regular agricultural 

 experiment station ; in many instances seed-testing alone is car- 

 ried on. The general plans are similar, although considerable 

 variation in details exists among the different stations. So far 

 as I can learn, there are no laws in Europe compelling seedsmen 

 to furnish good wares, but the result is reached through the 

 pressure of public sentiment, due to the efforts of the Control 

 Stations. 



Frequently the Avork is undertaken in connection with agricult- 

 ural societies, all of whose members share in the benefits. For 

 example, every agriculturist in the jurisdiction of the Dresden 

 Agricultural Society is authorized to send in to the Experiment 

 Station at Tharand, Saxony, samples of seed bought by him, to- 

 gether Avith a statement of their origin and cost. 



The sample must be taken and sealed before a witness and be 

 a fair aA^erage representative of the seed purchased, so that the 



