SEED TESTS 



Made July 1, 1918, to July 1, 1919 



The provisions of the Pure Seed Law enacted by the General 

 Court in 1909 require the publication annually of a bulletin show- 

 ing the results of all seed tests made officially during the previous 

 year. The administration of this law is in the hands of the State 

 Commissioner of Agriculture, who has appointed the writer, Agro- 

 nomist of the Experiment Station, as his regular agent for making 

 all tests and analyses in this state. 



During the year ending July 1, 1919, 798 samples of seed 

 were collected and sent in for analysis by authorized representatives 

 of the Commissioner of Agriculture. Of this number, 410 samples 

 were not guaranteed for purity and germination, and consequently 

 no test or report upon them was made. 



In publishing the results of this year's samples we have again 

 made use of the table of "tolerance" for purity as given on page 20 

 of the Proceedings of the Association of Official Analysts for 1916- 

 1 7, and which seems to afford a very satisfactory method of allowing 

 or tolerating a reasonable variation in purity tests. 



After applying the variations as given by the table to the re- 

 sults of our tests we have simply used the following terms instead 

 of stating the actual figures in the tabulations : 



"Satisfactory," meaning that the difference between our test 

 and the guarantee is within the variation allowed; "Above," mean- 

 ing that our test, after allowing for the variation, is above the 

 guarantee ; "Below," meaning that our test, after allowing for the 

 variation, is below the guarantee. 



In the matter of germination a variation of five per cent has 

 been allowed in the statement of results and the same terms used 

 as described above for purity. 



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