4 N. H. Experiment Station 



may be made by gravity sometimes in a specially con- 

 structed blower, sometimes by appearance under a hand 

 lens, and often only by pressure on each individual seed 

 with a pair of forceps held in the hand. 



Nowadays little reallj^ poor seed is likely to be found on 

 the market. The wholesaler strives to handle only such 

 quality of seeds as evidence a good guarantee and live up 

 to that guarantee with sufficient uniformity to meet the 

 requirements of all the seed testing stations in the country. 

 A few cases have come to our attention in recent years, 

 however, particularly with mixtures like lawn grasses, in 

 which an apparent attempt has been made to pass chaff or 

 empty glumes for good seed or to include species of doubt- 

 ful value for the purpose suggested. It is to the credit of 

 our local retail stores to state that samples of these mix- 

 tures are often sent to us for a preliminary examination 

 and consequently fail to find a market for the product in 

 New Hampshire. Another cogent reason for poor seeds 

 and for discrepancies between the tests and the guarantees 

 is the carrying over of seeds by the retailer from year to 

 year. The State Law requires on the label the date when 

 tested, which tends to alleviate this difficulty, as both far- 

 mers and mercliants realize that seed deteriorates more or 

 less with age. Our best dealers send to the laboratory reg- 

 ularly every spring samples from all seed left over from the 

 previous year. Of course the purity does not change ma- 

 terially unless disease or insect injury occurs, but a new 

 test on germination provides a basis for judging whether to 

 sell the seed for feed, or to put it on the market again with 

 a new label revised to date. 



Our law does not prevent the sale of seed which is of 

 very poor quality so long as it is labeled such. In this 

 case the farmer needs to read the guarantee. If a sample 

 is only 50 per cent pure seed and 50 per cent germinable 

 then 75 per cent of what he buys is worthless or worse. 

 Half the pure seed he knows will not germinate and half of 



