NILSSON'S DISCOVERY 51 



Malmo, close to the southwestern shore, and opposite Co- 

 penhagen in Denmark. In this village, a company for the 

 production and improvement of seed-grains for the southern 

 part of Sweden was organized in the year 1886. Its aim 

 was the procuring and testing of new and foreign varieties 

 of agricultural crops, in order to replace the Swedish sorts, 

 which at that time were slowly but manifestly deteriorating. 

 This deterioration was discovered to be a consequence of 

 the multiplication of admixtures of less value, which, though 

 rare and unobjectionable in the countries whence the vari- 

 eties were derived, were seen to thrive in a most obnoxious 

 way under the influence of the Swedish soil and climate, 

 and to lessen the value of the harvest in an important degree. 

 To procure new samples of seed grains was the first way of 

 combating this evil, the second being the purifying of the 

 introduced supplies before giving them into the hands of 

 the Swedish farmers. This cleaning could be performed 

 partly in the imported samples themselves, but had to be 

 combined also with the culture and multiplication which 

 usually precede the sale. 



The company was founded by private agriculturists and 

 had consequently to serve only the needs of practice. All 

 educational aims and purely scientific researches are ex- 

 cluded from its program, but, on the other hand, its work is 

 based on exact scientific methods. Its botanical studies 

 are as broad as possible, but always in the direct service of 

 agricultural practice. In this respect it is to be sharply con- 

 trasted with most of the experiment stations of Europe and 

 America, and it is important to state that exactly through 

 this procedure the obtained results have come to be of ex- 

 ceptionally great significance for science as well as for prac- 

 tice. Another consequence of this essential feature of the 

 program is that its publications are destined only for the 

 farmers of Sweden. They are published in the Swedish 



