Results of Seed Tests, 1929 5 



the sami)le is not the seed he wants at all, and quite pos- 

 sibly, is a potential source of many undesirable weeds. 

 Seed that has deteriorated with age from a good test is of 

 questionable vitality, possibly, even though it may evi- 

 dence 50 per cent of apparently healthy sprouts under the 

 most ideal conditions of the laboratory. In general, most 

 of the farmer's problems of good quality seeds for the com- 

 mon field crops like grasses, grains, and legumes are tak- 

 en care of in spite of him. Properly guaranteed by a law 

 which requires the label to be truthful, and checked up by 

 a State inspection which is likely to prohibit its sale if 

 found delinquent in any respect, the standards of quality 

 in agricultural seeds are automatically kept high. Only 

 an occasional oversight, lack of appreciation, or possible 

 gross neglect on the part of the vender can result in the 

 farmer's obtaining poor seed. 



Before seed testing was in vogue, quite in contrast were 

 the conditions. And it is well to suggest some of the olden 

 practices as indices of what might happen in our present 

 complicated state of society if none of our regulatory mea- 

 sures were in effect. A common method of adulterating 

 small farm seeds was to use those of weeds which had first 

 been heated sufficient^ to kill their powers of germination. 

 The killing of the weed seeds was done in the interests of 

 the seller rather than for the farmei'. The adulteration 

 with half weed seeds would be less conspicuous if none of 

 them grew. In Europe, at least, sand was graded and col- 

 ored to resemble clover seeds and used for filler. It had 

 the advantage of being very heavy when sold by weight, 

 in addition to being lifeless. Such were some of the gross 

 malpractices perpetrated on the farmer by unscrupulous 

 commercial concerns in the days much less than a century 

 past before seed testing came in as a proper preventative. 

 In the experience of our own State only a few years since, 

 under a law which was much less satisfactory than the one 

 we now have and before our methods and equipment for 



